A fossil-calibrated time-tree of all Australian freshwater fishes
Data files
May 07, 2021 version files 115.12 MB
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100_trees_molecular_data_only.nex
808.38 KB
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10000_trees_dataset.nex
106.62 MB
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reduced_dataset_sequences.nex
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total_dataset_sequences.nex
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Abstract
Australian freshwater fishes are a relatively species-poor assemblage, comprising a small number of Gondwanan lineages and a number of groups derived from repeated freshwater invasions by marine ancestors. In addition to being a comparatively small assemblage, they are both highly endemic and highly threatened. However, a comprehensive phylogeny for these taxa is lacking, which has hampered efforts to study their phylogenetic diversity, distribution of extinction risk, speciation rate, and rates of trait evolution. Here, we present a comprehensive dated phylogeny of 412 Australian freshwater fishes. We include all formally recognized freshwater species plus a number of genetically distinct subpopulations, species awaiting formal description, and predominantly brackish-water species. The phylogeny was inferred using maximum-likelihood analysis of a multilocus data set comprising six mitochondrial and three nuclear genes from 326 taxa. We inferred the evolutionary timescale using penalized likelihood, then used a statistical approach to add 86 taxa for which no molecular data were available. The time-tree inferred in our study will provide a useful resource for macroecological studies of Australian freshwater fishes, by enabling corrections for phylogenetic non-independence in evolutionary and ecological comparative analyses.