A genomic timescale for placental mammal evolution

Abstract

The precise pattern and timing of speciation events that gave rise to all living placental mammals remain controversial. We provide a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of genetic variation across an alignment of 241 placental mammal genome assemblies, addressing prior concerns regarding limited genomic sampling across species. We compared neutral genome-wide phylogenomic signal using concatenation and coalescent-based approaches, interrogated phylogenetic variation across chromosomes and analyzed extensive catalogs of structural variants. Interordinal relationships exhibit relatively low rates of phylogenomic conflict across diverse datasets and analytical methods. Conversely, X-chromosome versus autosome conflicts characterize multiple independent clades that radiated during the Cenozoic. Genomic timetrees reveal an accumulation of cladogenic events before and immediately following the KPg boundary implying important roles for Cretaceous continental vicariance and the KPg extinction in the placental radiation. One-Sentence SummaryA comprehensive whole genome phylogeny of extant placental mammals reveals timing and patterns of ordinal diversification.