Rise of the Continent of the Monkeys

Total evidence phylogeny of platyrrhine primates and a comparison of undated and tip-dating approaches (2022)
Journal Article
Beck, R., de Vries, D., Janiak, M., Goodhead, I., & Boubli, J. (2022). Total evidence phylogeny of platyrrhine primates and a comparison of undated and tip-dating approaches. Journal of Human Evolution, 174, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103293

There have been multiple published phylogenetic analyses of platyrrhine primates (New World monkeys) using both morphological and molecular data, but relatively few that have integrated both types of data into a total evidence approach. Here, we pr... Read More about Total evidence phylogeny of platyrrhine primates and a comparison of undated and tip-dating approaches.

Ancient DNA of the pygmy marmoset type specimen Cebuella pygmaea (Spix, 1823) resolves a taxonomic conundrum (2021)
Journal Article
Boubli, J., Janiak, M., Porter, L., de la Torre, S., Cortés-Ortiz, L., da Silva, M., …Roos, C. (2021). Ancient DNA of the pygmy marmoset type specimen Cebuella pygmaea (Spix, 1823) resolves a taxonomic conundrum. Zoological Research, 42(6), 761-771. https://doi.org/10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2021.143

The pygmy marmoset, the smallest of the anthropoid primates, has a broad distribution in Western Amazonia. Recent studies using molecular and morphological data have identified two distinct species separated by the Napo and Solimões-Amazonas rivers.... Read More about Ancient DNA of the pygmy marmoset type specimen Cebuella pygmaea (Spix, 1823) resolves a taxonomic conundrum.

Widespread loss of mammalian lineage and dietary diversity in the early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia (2021)
Journal Article
de Vries, D., Heritage, S., Borths, M., Sallam, H., & Seiffert, E. (2021). Widespread loss of mammalian lineage and dietary diversity in the early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia. Communications Biology, 4(1), 1172. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02707-9

Diverse lines of geological and geochemical evidence indicate that the Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT) marked the onset of a global cooling phase, rapid growth of the Antarctic ice sheet, and a worldwide drop in sea level. Paleontologists have esta... Read More about Widespread loss of mammalian lineage and dietary diversity in the early Oligocene of Afro-Arabia.

The landscape of tolerated genetic variation in humans and primates. (2023)
Journal Article
Gao, H., Hamp, T., Ede, J., Schraiber, J. G., McRae, J., Singer-Berk, M., …Jolly, C. J. (2023). The landscape of tolerated genetic variation in humans and primates. Science, 380(6648), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn8197

Personalized genome sequencing has revealed millions of genetic differences between individuals, but our understanding of their clinical relevance remains largely incomplete. To systematically decipher the effects of human genetic variants, we obtain... Read More about The landscape of tolerated genetic variation in humans and primates..

Two hundred and five newly assembled mitogenomes provide mixed evidence for rivers as drivers of speciation for Amazonian primates (2022)
Journal Article
Janiak, M. C., Silva, F. E., Beck, R. M. D., de Vries, D., Kuderna, L. F. K., Torosin, N. S., …Boubli, J. P. (2022). Two hundred and five newly assembled mitogenomes provide mixed evidence for rivers as drivers of speciation for Amazonian primates. Molecular Ecology, 31(14), 3888-3902. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16554

Mitochondrial DNA remains a cornerstone for molecular ecology, especially for study species from which high-quality tissue samples cannot be easily obtained. Methods using mitochondrial markers are usually reliant on reference databases, but these ar... Read More about Two hundred and five newly assembled mitogenomes provide mixed evidence for rivers as drivers of speciation for Amazonian primates.

Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline (2024)
Journal Article
de Vries, D., Janiak, M. C., Batista, R., Boubli, J. P., Goodhead, I. B., Ridgway, E., …Beck, R. M. D. (2024). Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline. Journal of Mammalian Evolution, 31(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09704-9

Dental topographic metrics (DTMs), which quantify different aspects of the shape of teeth, are powerful tools for studying dietary adaptation and evolution in mammals. Current DTM protocols usually rely on proprietary software, which may be unavailab... Read More about Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline.

Identification of constrained sequence elements across 239 primate genomes. (2023)
Journal Article
Kuderna, L. F., Ulirsch, J. C., Rashid, S., Ameen, M., Sundaram, L., Hickey, G., …Farh, K. K.-H. (2023). Identification of constrained sequence elements across 239 primate genomes. Nature, 36, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06798-8

Noncoding DNA is central to our understanding of human gene regulation and complex diseases , and measuring the evolutionary sequence constraint can establish the functional relevance of putative regulatory elements in the human genome . Identifying... Read More about Identification of constrained sequence elements across 239 primate genomes..

A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species. (2023)
Journal Article
Kuderna, L. F. K., Gao, H., Janiak, M. C., Kuhlwilm, M., Orkin, J. D., Bataillon, T., …Jolly, C. J. (2023). A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species. Science, 380(6648), 906-913. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abn7829

The rich diversity of morphology and behavior displayed across primate species provides an informative context in which to study the impact of genomic diversity on fundamental biological processes. Analysis of that diversity provides insight into lon... Read More about A global catalog of whole-genome diversity from 233 primate species..

Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline (2024)
Journal Article
de Vries, D., Janiak, M. C., Batista, R., Boubli, J. P., Goodhead, I. B., Ridgway, E., …Beck, R. M. (2024). Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline. Journal of Mammalian Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.31.555703

Dental topographic metrics (DTMs), which quantify different aspects of the shape of teeth, are powerful tools for studying dietary adaptation and evolution in mammals. However, comparative samples of scanned mammal teeth suitable for analysis with D... Read More about Comparison of dental topography of marmosets and tamarins (Callitrichidae) to other platyrrhine primates using a novel freeware pipeline.

A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation (2023)
Journal Article
Hand, S. J., Maugoust, J., Beck, R. M., & Orliac, M. J. (2023). A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation. Current Biology, 33(21), 4624-4640. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.043

Bats are among the most recognizable, numerous, and widespread of all mammals. But much of their fossil record is missing, and bat origins remain poorly understood, as do the relationships of early to modern bats. Here, we describe a new early Eocene... Read More about A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation.