Tree-kangaroos Dendrolagus sp. are a poorly known group of folivorous arboreal macropodid marsupials endemic to the rainforests of north-eastern Australia and New Guinea. Over the last century there has been little agreement on the relationship between the two Australian species, D. lumholtzi and D. bennettianus. In light of this uncertainty, we undertook a phylogenetics study based on 430 bp of sequence from the mitochondrial DNA gene cytochrome b (cytb). Samples were collected from D. lumholtzi (n = 45) and D. bennettianus (n = 3), as well as representative of six New Guinean Dendrolagus species. Results from distance and parsimony analyses strongly support a sister relationship between the two Australian species. However, D. lumholtzi and D. bennettanius show considerable sequence divergence (5.3%), suggesting that their speciation predates the mid-late Pleistocene. Although inter-relationships amongst New Guinean Dendrolagus were not fully resolved by our preliminary analysis, a number of distinct lineages are apparent. D. goodfellowi, D. matschiei and D. spadix form a monophyletic group of closely related taxa, as do the two sampled subspecies of D. dorianus. However, unexpectedly large divergences were obtained both between these subspecies (7.4%) and within one of them (D. d. stellerum, 7.8%). This suggests that D. dorianus may actually consist of a complex of related species, but more extensive research is required.
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March 17 2014
Tree-kangaroos Dendrolagus in Australia: are D. lumholtzi and D. bennettianus sister taxa?
Jocelyn Bowyer;
Jocelyn Bowyer
2
Department of Biological Sciences, Division of Environmental and Life Science, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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Graeme Newell;
Graeme Newell
1
Cooperative Research Centre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management, CSIRO Tropical Forest Research Centre, PO Box 780, Atherton, Qld 4883, Australia
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Cushla Metcalfe;
Cushla Metcalfe
2
Department of Biological Sciences, Division of Environmental and Life Science, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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Mark Eldridge
Mark Eldridge
2
Department of Biological Sciences, Division of Environmental and Life Science, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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Australian Zoologist (2003) 32 (2): 207–213.
Citation
Jocelyn Bowyer, Graeme Newell, Cushla Metcalfe, Mark Eldridge; Tree-kangaroos Dendrolagus in Australia: are D. lumholtzi and D. bennettianus sister taxa?. Australian Zoologist 1 February 2003; 32 (2): 207–213. doi: https://doi.org/10.7882/AZ.2003.002
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