Titre |
Origins, diversity and relationships of lemurs. |
Titre de la série |
International Journal of Primatology. |
Résumé |
Adaptative radiation of lemurs has been essentially confined to Madagascar. The high density of lemur species on that island, associated with very small geographical ranges, has major implications both for their evolutionary divergence and for conservation. Reconstructions of phylogenetic relationships among primates have been considerably enhanced by DNA sequence data. Sufficient data are now available from both nuclear and mitochondrial sequences to examine relationships among and within the major groups of living primates. Most studies have confirmed that lemurs constitute a monophyletic sister-group of the lorisiform clade and all exclude a specific relationship between cheirogaleids and lorisiforms repeatedly inferred from morphological evidence. However, some analyses indicate that the aye-aye may have branched away before the divergence between other lemurs and lorisiforms. DNA sequence analyses have also yielded a broad consensus for relationships between Eulemur, Hapalemur, Lemur and Varecia: Varecia branched away first, while Lemur is more closely related to Hapalemur than to Eulemur. |