Authors
Cai Li, Yong Zhang, Jianwen Li, Lesheng Kong, Haofu Hu, Hailin Pan, Luohao Xu, Yuan Deng, Qiye Li, Lijun Jin, Hao Yu, Yan Chen, Binghang Liu, Linfeng Yang, Shiping Liu, Yan Zhang, Yongshan Lang, Jinquan Xia, Weiming He, Qiong Shi, Sankar Subramanian, Craig D Millar, Stephen Meader, Chris M Rands, Matthew K Fujita, Matthew J Greenwold, Todd A Castoe, David D Pollock, Wanjun Gu, Kiwoong Nam, Hans Ellegren, Simon YW Ho, David W Burt, Chris P Ponting, Erich D Jarvis, M Thomas P Gilbert, Huanming Yang, Jian Wang, David M Lambert, Jun Wang, Guojie Zhang
Publication date
2014/12
Journal
GigaScience
Volume
3
Pages
1-15
Publisher
BioMed Central
Description
Background
Penguins are flightless aquatic birds widely distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The distinctive morphological and physiological features of penguins allow them to live an aquatic life, and some of them have successfully adapted to the hostile environments in Antarctica. To study the phylogenetic and population history of penguins and the molecular basis of their adaptations to Antarctica, we sequenced the genomes of the two Antarctic dwelling penguin species, the Adélie penguin [Pygoscelis adeliae] and emperor penguin [Aptenodytes forsteri].
Results
Phylogenetic dating suggests that early penguins arose ~60 million years ago, coinciding with a period of global warming. Analysis of effective population sizes reveals that the two penguin species experienced population expansions from ~1 million years ago to ~100 thousand years …
Scholar articles
C Li, Y Zhang, J Li, L Kong, H Hu, H Pan, L Xu, Y Deng… - GigaScience, 2014