%0 Journal Article
%T Mitochondrial evidence for multiple radiations in the evolutionary history of small apes
%A Van Ngoc Thinh
%A Alan R Mootnick
%A Thomas Geissmann
%A Ming Li
%A Thomas Ziegler
%A Muhammad Agil
%A Pierre Moisson
%A Tilo Nadler
%A Lutz Walter
%A Christian Roos
%J BMC Evolutionary Biology
%D 2010
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2148-10-74
%X Based on phylogenetic tree reconstructions, several monophyletic clades were detected, corresponding to genera, species and subspecies. A significantly supported branching pattern was obtained for members of the genus Nomascus but not for the genus Hylobates. The phylogenetic relationships among the four genera were also not well resolved. Nevertheless, the new data permitted the estimation of divergence ages for all taxa for the first time and showed that most lineages emerged during four short time periods. In the first, between ~6.7 and ~8.3 mya, the four gibbon genera diverged from each other. In the second (~3.0 - ~3.9 mya) and in the third period (~1.3 - ~1.8 mya), Hylobates and Hoolock differentiated. Finally, between ~0.5 and ~1.1 mya, Hylobates lar diverged into subspecies. In contrast, differentiation of Nomascus into species and subspecies was a continuous and prolonged process lasting from ~4.2 until ~0.4 mya.Although relationships among gibbon taxa on various levels remain unresolved, the present study provides a more complete view of the evolutionary and biogeographic history of the hylobatid family, and a more solid genetic basis for the taxonomic classification of the surviving taxa. We also show that mtDNA constitutes a useful marker for the accurate identification of individual gibbons, a tool which is urgently required to locate hunting hotspots and select individuals for captive breeding programs. Further studies including nuclear sequence data are necessary to completely understand the phylogeny and phylogeography of gibbons.Gibbons, family Hylobatidae, are small arboreal apes, which inhabit tropical and subtropical rainforests of Southeast Asia and adjacent regions (Figure 1). Together with humans and great apes, they belong to the primate superfamily Hominoidea [1-4]. Among hominoids, gibbons were the first to branch off and they display a set of morphological and behavioural characteristics distinctly different from great apes and humans [1,5
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/10/74