食肉目鼬科（Mustelidae）物种是经历快速辐射进化和近期物种形成事件的典型类群，围绕其所包含的各亚科之间的系统发育关系一直是国内外研究的热点，至今仍处于“众说纷纭”的状态。

中国科学院昆明动物研究所张亚平院士、云南大学于黎研究员和博士研究生刘江，硕士研究生彭丹结合模式生物基因组信息，系统筛选得到17个新的单拷贝核基因内含子片段，将它们用于食肉目鼬科亚科间系统发育关系研究。研究结果支持美洲獾亚科(Taxidiinae)最先分歧，然后是獾亚科(Melinae)。水獭亚科(Lutrinae)和鼬亚科(Mustelinae)在所有分析中都聚为姐妹群。有趣的是，鼬獾亚科(Helictidinae)的系统发育位置在核基因和线粒体基因分析中得到了不同的结果：线粒体基因组分析支持它和水獭亚科/鼬亚科的关系最近，而核基因提出了与以往所有系统发育分析结果不同的系统发育假说，支持它和貂亚科(Martinae)是姐妹群。

该研究文章发表在BMC Evolutionary Biology刊物上（2011, 11: 92）。

原文出处：

BMC Evolutionary Biology   2011, 11:92doi:10.1186/1471-2148-11-92

On the phylogeny of Mustelidae subfamilies: analysis of seventeen nuclear non-coding loci and mitochondrial complete genomes

Li Yu , Dan Peng , Jiang Liu , Pengtao Luan , Lu Liang , Hang Lee , Muyeong Lee , Oliver A Ryder  and Yaping Zhang

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Mustelidae, as the largest and most-diverse family of order Carnivora, comprises eight subfamilies. Phylogenetic relationships among these Mustelidae subfamilies remain argumentative subjects in recent years. One of the main reasons is that the mustelids represent a typical example of rapid evolutionary radiation and recent speciation event. Prior investigation has been concentrated on the application of different mitochondrial (mt) sequence and nuclear protein-coding data, herein we employ 17 nuclear non-coding loci (>15kb), in conjunction with mt complete genome data (>16kb), to clarify these enigmatic problems.

Results

The combined nuclear intron and mt genome analyses both robustly support that Taxidiinae diverged first, followed by Melinae. Lutrinae and Mustelinae are grouped together in all analyses with strong supports. The position of Helictidinae, however, is enigmatic because the mt genome analysis places it to the clade uniting Lutrinae and Mustelinae, whereas the nuclear intron analysis favores a novel view supporting a closer relationship of Helictidinae to Martinae. This finding emphasizes a need to add more data and include more taxa to resolve this problem. In addition, the molecular dating provides insights into the time scale of the origin and diversification of the Mustelidae subfamilies. Finally, the phylogenetic performances and limits of nuclear introns and mt genes are discussed in the context of Mustelidae phylogeny.

Conclusion

Our study not only brings new perspectives on the previously obscured phylogenetic relationships among Mustelidae subfamilies, but also provides another example demonstrating the effectiveness of nuclear non-coding loci for reconstructing evolutionary histories in a group that has undergone rapid bursts of speciation.