Summary
Sibley and Ahlquist (1984, 1987) presented the results of a study of 514 DNA-DNA hybrids among the hominoids and Old World monkeys (Cercopithecidae). They concluded that the branching order of the living hominoid lineages, from oldest to most recent, was gibbons, orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzees, and human. Thus, a chimpanzee-human clade was indicated, rather than the chimpanzee-gorilla clade usually suggested from morphological evidence. The positions of the gibbon and orangutan branches in the phylogeny are supported by substantial evidence, but whether the chimpanzee lineage branched most recently from the human lineage or from the gorilla lineage remains controversial. The conclusions of Sibley and Ahlquist (1984, 1987) have been supported by several independent studies cited by Sibley and Ahlquist (1987), plus the DNA sequence data of Hayasaka et al. (1988), Miyamoto et al. (1988), Goodman et al. (1989, 1990), and the DNA-DNA hybridization data of Caccone and Powell (1989). The laboratory and data analysis methods have been criticized by Marks et al. (1988) and Sarich et al. (1989). In response to these critics, and for our own interests, we present a reanalysis of the Sibley and Ahlquist data, including a description of the corrections applied to the “raw counts”. The validity of the laboratory methods is supported by the congruence of tree topology and delta values with those of Caccone and Powell (1989), although their tetraethylammonium chloride technique differs from the hydroxyapatite method in several respects. The utility of the T50H distance measure is indicated by its congruence with percent sequence divergence at least to delta T50H 30, as noted by Goodman et al. (1990). The Sibley and Ahlquist uncorrected data indicate thatPan is genetically closer toHomo than toGorilla, but thatGorilla may be genetically closer toPan than toHomo. Melting curves are presented for the pertiment experiments, plus one that includes representatives of most of the groups of living primates.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andrews P, Martin LB (1987) Cladistic relationships of extant and fossil hominoids. In: Grine FE, Fleagle JG, Fleagle JG, Martin LB (eds) Primate phylogeny. Academic Press, New York, pp 101–118
Benveniste RE (1987) The contributions of retroviruses to the study of mammalian evolution. In: MacIntyre RJ (ed) Molecular evolutionary genetics. Plenum, New York, pp 359–417
Bonner TI, Heinemann R, Todaro GJ (1980) Evolution of DNA sequence has been retarded in Malagasy lemurs. Nature 286: 420–423
Britten RJ (1989) Comment on a criticism of DNA hybridization measurements. J Hum Evol 18:163–164
Caccone A, Powell JR (1989) DNA divergence among hominoids. Evolution 43:925–942
Caccone A, DeSalle R, Powell JR (1988) Calibration of the change in thermal stability of DNA duplexes and degree of base pair mismatch. J Mol Evol 27:212–216
Gingerich PD (1986)Plesiadapis and the delineation of the order Primates. In: Wood B, Martin L, Andrews P (eds) Major topics in primate and human evolution. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 32–46
Goodman M, Koop BF, Czelusniak J, Fitch DHA, Tagle DA, Slightom JL (1989) Molecular phylogeny of the family of apes and humans. Genome 31:316–335
Goodman M, Tagle DA, Fitch DHA, Bailey W, Czelusniak J, Koop BF, Benson P, Slightom JL (1990) Primate evolution at the DNA level and a classification of hominoids. J Mol Evol 30:260–266
Hayasaka K, Gojobori T, Horai S (1988) Molecular phylogeny and evolution of primate mitochondrial DNA. Mol Biol Evol 5:626–644
Holland BS, Copenhaver MD (1987) An improved sequentially rejective Bonferroni test procedure. Biometrics 43:417–423
Koop BF, Goodman M, Xu P, Chan K, Slightom JL (1986) Primateeta-globin DNA sequences and man's place among the great apes. Nature 319:234–238
Marks J, Schmid CW, Sarich VM (1988) DNA hybridization as a guide to phylogeny: relations of the Hominoidea. J Hum Evol 17:769–786
Miyamoto MM, Koop BF, Slightom JL, Goodman G, Tennant MR (1988) Molecular systematics of higher primates: genealogical relations and classification. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 85:7627–7631
O'Brien SJ, Nash WG, Wildt DE, Bush ME, Benveniste RE (1985) A molecular solution to the riddle of the giant panda's phylogeny. Nature 317:140–144
Russell E (1989) Co-operative breeding—a Gondwanan perspective. Emu 89:61–62
Sarich VM, Schmid CW, Marks J (1989) DNA hybridization as a guide to phylogeny: a critical analysis. Cladistics 5:3–32
Sibley CG, Ahlquist JE (1983) The phylogeny and classification of birds based on the data of DNA-DNA hybridization. In: Johnston RF (ed) Current ornithology, vol. 1. Plenum, New York, pp 245–292
Sibley CG, Ahlquist JE (1984) The phylogeny of the hominoid primates, as indicated by DNA-DNA hybridization. J Mol Evol 20:2–15
Sibley CG, Ahlquist JE (1987) DNA hybridization evidence of hominoid phylogeny: results from an expanded data set. J Mol Evol 26:99–121
Sibley CG, Ahlquist JE, Monroe BL (1988) A classification of the living birds of the world based on DNA-DNA hybridization studies. Auk 105:409–423
Sokal RR, Rohlf FJ (1981) Biometry, ed 2. WH Freeman, New York
Werman SD, Springer MS, Britten RJ (1990) Nucleic acids I: DNA-DNA hybridization. Principles and comparisons of methods. In: Hillis D, Moritz C (eds) Molecular systematics. Sinauer, Sunderland MA
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sibley, C.G., Comstock, J.A. & Ahlquist, J.E. DNA hybridization evidence of hominoid phylogeny: A reanalysis of the data. J Mol Evol 30, 202–236 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02099992
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02099992