HIGHER-LEVEL SYSTEMATICS OF EUTHERIAN MAMMALS - AN ASSESSMENT OF MOLECULAR CHARACTERS AND PHYLOGENETIC HYPOTHESES

Phylogenetic relationships among eutherian mammal orders are discussed in light of previous morphological and molecular studies. Congruence within and between these two major groups of characters is evaluated, and several phylogenetic hypotheses are examined using recent nucleotide sequence data from both mitochondrial and nuclear genes. The results of an assessment of these molecular data using parsimony analysis are as follows: (i) An examination of the 13 mitochondrial protein encoding gene sequences derived from five orders of mammals provided strong support for a relationship between the order Carnivora and an Artiodaclya/Cetacea clade. (ii) The monophyly of the superorder Archonta (Primates, Scadentia, Dermoptera, and Chiroptera) is not supported, and the molecular phylogenies do not support a Chiroptera/Dermoptera clade, a finding incongruent with some morphological evidence. (iii) The monophyly of the superorder Glires (Rodentia and Lagomorpha) is only weakly supported by a subset of molecular data and strongly supported by morphology. (iv) The monophyly of the orders Rodentia and Chiroptera is supported.