title: Primate molecular phylogenetics in a genomic era.
abstract: A primary objective of molecular phylogenetics is to use molecular data to elucidate the evolutionary history of living organisms. Dr. Morris Goodman founded the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution as a forum where scientists could further our knowledge about the tree of life, and he recognized that the inference of species trees is a first and fundamental step to addressing many important evolutionary questions. In particular, Dr. Goodman was interested in obtaining a complete picture of the primate species tree in order to provide an evolutionary context for the study of human adaptations. A number of recent studies use multi-locus datasets to infer well-resolved and well-supported primate phylogenetic trees using consensus approaches (e.g., supermatrices). It is therefore tempting to assume that we have a complete picture of the primate tree, especially above the species level. However, recent theoretical and empirical work in the field of molecular phylogenetics demonstrates that consensus methods might provide a false sense of support at certain nodes. In this brief review we discuss the current state of primate molecular phylogenetics and highlight the importance of exploring the use of coalescent-based analyses that have the potential to better utilize information contained in multi-locus data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, 308 Condon Hall, 1218 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403, USA. nting@uoregon.edu
authors.forename: Nelson
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ting
authors.forename: Kirstin N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Sterner
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D058885:Multilocus Sequence Typing / Q000379:methods; D010802:Phylogeny; D011323:Primates / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*