Evolutionary Bioinformatics

¹Paleogenetics and Molecular Evolution; IFR 128, Lyon, F-69007, France; Université Lyon 1, Lyon, F-69007, France; CNRS UMR 5242, INRA, Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d’Italie, Lyon, F-69364 Cédex 07, France. ²CNRS UMR 5023, Laboratoire d’Ecologie des Hydrosystèmes Fluviaux, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 6 rue R. Dubois, Bat. Darwin-C, F-69622 Villeurbanne Cédex, France.

Abstract: At the morphological level, the woolly mammoth has most often been considered as the sister-species of Asian elephants, but at the DNA level, different studies have found support for proximity with African elephants. Recent reports have increased the available sequence data and apparently solved the discrepancy, finding mammoths to be most closely related to Asian elephants. However, we demonstrate here that the three competing topologies have similar likelihood, bayesian and parsimony supports. The analysis further suggests the inadequacy of using Sirenia or Hyracoidea as outgroups. We therefore argue that orthologous sequences from the extinct American mastodon will be required to defi nitively solve this long-standing question.