Authors
Yan-Jie Feng, David C Blackburn, Dan Liang, David M Hillis, David B Wake, David C Cannatella, Peng Zhang
Publication date
2017/7/18
Journal
Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences
Volume
114
Issue
29
Pages
E5864-E5870
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Description
Frogs (Anura) are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates and comprise nearly 90% of living amphibian species. Their worldwide distribution and diverse biology make them well-suited for assessing fundamental questions in evolution, ecology, and conservation. However, despite their scientific importance, the evolutionary history and tempo of frog diversification remain poorly understood. By using a molecular dataset of unprecedented size, including 88-kb characters from 95 nuclear genes of 156 frog species, in conjunction with 20 fossil-based calibrations, our analyses result in the most strongly supported phylogeny of all major frog lineages and provide a timescale of frog evolution that suggests much younger divergence times than suggested by earlier studies. Unexpectedly, our divergence-time analyses show that three species-rich clades (Hyloidea, Microhylidae, and Natatanura), which together …
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