The Auk: Vol. 118, pp. 799-804
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Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 (all authors);
Departments of Plant Biology (E.L.B.) and Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology (R.T.K.), Ohio
State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210
E.L.B. and R.T.K.
are currently in the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida.
A novel nuclear marker , the avian ovomucoid intron G (OVOG)
was sequenced from 19 galliform taxa. Results of the phylogenetic
analyses using OVOG were compared to those obtained using the
mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) gene to determine the phylogenetic utility
of OVOG. OVOG appeared to have strong phylogenetic signal for reconstructing
relationships among genera and families, and the only difference between
OVOG and cytb was in the placement of the New World quail (Odontophoridae).
Genetic distances estimated using OVOG are approximately half of those
estimated using cytb, although that relationship was not linear. OVOG
exhibited patterns of nucleotide substitution very different from cytb, with
OVOG having little base compositional bias, a relatively low transitiontransversion
ratio, and little among-site rate heterogeneity.