Disseration Research: Nuclear and Mitochondrial Phylogeny of the New World Monkeys

了解动物物种是如何相互联系的，对于理解生物世界的多样性是基本的，并为生物学的其他部分提供了建立知识的框架。今天，涉及DNA序列数据获取和分析的新基因技术正在为这一领域提供重大的新见解，使我们能够了解不同的生物之间是如何相互关联的，以及DNA本身是如何随着时间的推移而变化的。其中一个鲜为人知的动物是新大陆猴科动物。应用新的DNA技术来阐明这一群体成员之间的关系有可能产生大量的信息，澄清我们对灵长类这一分支的看法，并有助于我们对自然界的全面了解。将为新大陆猴子的14个分类群的代表收集核和线粒体DNA序列数据。要研究的基因是核X编码的葡萄糖-6-磷酸脱氢酶基因座(G6PD)和线粒体细胞色素C氧化酶亚基II(COII)基因座。这些新生成的32kb的DNA序列数据将与来自其他新大陆猴子分类群的相同两个座位的现有DNA序列数据相结合，使用各种建树算法(最大简约度、最大似然和距离)重建白颈猴的系统发育树。这些新数据将被用来测量鸭嘴兽七个属内的遗传变异程度，并增加系统发育估计的总体稳健性。将比较这些线粒体编码区和核非编码区之间的分子进化变化率。将检查线粒体COII数据，以更好地了解该基因座单倍体内的加速比。最后，将研究具有功能特征的线粒体基因座的替换模式，以寻找限制核苷酸替换的证据。

Understanding how animal species are related to each other is fundamental to understanding the diversity of the living world, and provides the framework upon which the rest of biology can build knowledge. Today, new genetic technologies involving the acquisition and analysis of DNA sequence data are providing major new insights in this area, allowing us to understand both how diverse organisms are related to each other and how DNA itself changes over time. One group of animals that is poorly understood is the family of New World monkeys. The application of new DNA technologies to elucidating the relationships among the members of this group has the potential to yield significant amounts of information, clarifying our view of this branch of the primate order and contributing to our overall knowledge about the natural world. Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequence data will be collected for representatives of fourteen taxa of New World monkeys. The genes to be studied are the nuclear X-encoded glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase locus (G6PD) and the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit II (COII) locus. These newly-generated 32 kilobases of DNA sequence data will be combined with existing DNA sequence data for the same two loci from other New World monkey taxa to reconstruct phylogenetic trees of the platyrrhines using a variety of tree-building algorithms (maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and distance). These new data will be used to measure the extent of genetic variation within seven genera of platyrrhines and to increase the overall robustness of phylogenetic estimation. Molecular evolutionary rates of change will be compared between these mitochondrial coding and nuclear non-coding regions. The mitochondrial COII data will be examined to gain a better understanding of the rate speedup within haplorhines at this locus. Finally, substitution patterns at the functionally characterized mitochondrial locus will be studied for evidence of constraints on nucleotide substitutions.