PLATYRRHINE SYSTEMATICS - A SIMULTANEOUS ANALYSIS OF MOLECULAR AND MORPHOLOGICAL DATA

Platyrrhine phylogeny has been investigated repeatedly with morphologi cal characters and DNA nuclear gene sequences, with partially inconsis tent results. Given the finding in the past decade that the mitochondr ial genome is a potentially valuable source of phylogenetic informatio n, we gathered DNA sequence data of a fragment of the 16S and the enti re 12S mitochondrial genes. The objectives were to generate a cladisti c phylogeny based on these data and to combine them in a simultaneous analysis with morphological characters and preexisting nuclear DNA seq uences. Mitochondrial data analyzed on its own yielded a cladogram tha t was different from those generated with other data sets. The simulta neous analysis of mitochondrial, nuclear, and morphological data yield ed a tree most congruent with that generated with nuclear data and to a lesser degree with the morphological one. It depicted a basal dichot omy that led to two major clades: one of them comprised [Atelinae (Cal licebus + Pitheciini)] and the other major clade comprised [Aotus ((Ce bus, Saimiri) (Callitrichinae))], The weakest point of the phylogeny w as the position of Aotus as basal within their clade as opposed to mor e closely linked with either the calltrichines or Cebus-Saimiri. Relat ionships within callitrichines and atelines were unstable as well. The simultaneous phylogenetic analysis of all data sets revealed congruen t signal in all of them that was partially obscured in the separate an alyses. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.