Phylogeny of the Jacanidae estimated from cytochrome-B and ND5 Gene Sequences

Whittingham, L.A., Sheldon, F.H., and Emlen, S.T. 2000. Auk, 116:22-32.

ND5 in a phylogenetic analysis of seven species of jacanas, representing all six genera, and a painted-snipe outgroup. When analyzed separately by parsimony and maximum-likelihood bootstrapping, the two genes produced consistent trees, although the ND5 tree was better resolved than the cytochrome-b tree. When combined, the data from the two genes produced a fully resolved tree that was identical to the ND5 tree. This tree had the following form: ((((Irediparra, Microparra), Metopidius), Actophilornis), ((Jacana jacana, J. spinosa), Hydrophasianus)), Rostratula. This phylogeny consists of two major clades, which were known to traditional and phylogenetic taxonomists. It also contains sister taxa that are geographically disjunct: viz., the New World Jacana and Asian Hydrophasianus, and the African Microparra and Australian Irediparra. We postulate that these interesting distributions result from the extinction of intervening African and Asian taxa, respectively.

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