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AMNIOTE PHYLOGENY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOSSILS.

Jacques Gauthier1, Arnold G Kluge1, Timothy Rowe2

  • 1Museum of Zoology and Department of Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079.

Cladistics : the International Journal of the Willi Hennig Society
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PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Fossils, particularly certain synapsid fossils, significantly alter amniote phylogeny by providing crucial primitive and derived traits. Ignoring fossils can lead to less accurate evolutionary relationships and a poorer fit to the stratigraphic record.

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Area of Science:

  • Systematics
  • Paleontology
  • Evolutionary Biology

Background:

  • Prominent cladists question the importance of fossils in phylogenetic inference.
  • Extinct taxa are often fitted to cladograms of Recent taxa, potentially overlooking their significance.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test if fossils can overturn phylogenetic hypotheses based solely on Recent biota.
  • To investigate the impact of fossils on amniote phylogeny.

Main Methods:

  • Parsimony analysis of amniote phylogeny, initially excluding fossil data.
  • Inclusion of fossil data to observe changes in the most parsimonious cladogram.
  • Successive partitioning of data to isolate critical fossil groups.

Main Results:

  • Excluding fossils yielded a classification similar to novel hypotheses.
  • Including fossils resulted in a different, more traditional cladogram that better fits the stratigraphic record.
  • Specific synapsid fossils, exhibiting a mix of primitive and derived characters, were found to be pivotal.

Conclusions:

  • Fossils, especially ingroup synapsid fossils, are crucial for accurate phylogenetic inference in amniotes.
  • The primitive nature of critical fossils suggests they have had less time to evolve.
  • Systematists should fairly evaluate all available evidence, including fossils, in phylogenetic analyses.