Data from: Phylogenetic relationships and tempo of early diversification in Anolis lizards

We examine phylogenetic relationships among anoles using mitochondrial DNA sequences from the NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 gene (ND2) and five transfer-RNA genes representing 1,455 alignable base positions and 866 phylogenetically informative characters (parsimony criterion). We also present 16 morphological characters for phylogenetic analysis. Our analyses yielded poorly-supported nodes deep in the anole tree but many well-supported nodes for more recent phylogenetic divergences. We test the hypothesis that the major clades of anoles form a hard polytomy and present a general statistical framework for testing hypothesis of simultaneous branching of lineages by using molecular sequence data. Our results suggest that rapid diversification early in the evolutionary history of anoles explains why numberous researchers have had difficulty reconstruction well-supported dichotomous phylogenetic trees for anoles.

本研究基于烟酰胺腺嘌呤二核苷酸脱氢酶亚基2基因（ND2）与5个转运RNA基因的线粒体DNA序列，对安乐蜥的系统发育关系进行分析，共获得1455个可比对碱基位点及866个符合简约性准则的系统发育信息性状。本研究同时提供16个形态学性状用于系统发育分析。分析结果显示，安乐蜥系统发育树深处的节点支持度较低，而对应较晚系统发育分化事件的节点则普遍具有较高支持度。本研究检验了"安乐蜥主要演化支构成严格多歧支（hard polytomy）"这一假说，并提出了一套基于分子序列数据检验谱系同时分支假说的通用统计框架。研究结果表明，安乐蜥演化早期的快速辐射演化，正是此前众多研究者难以构建高支持度二歧式系统发育树的原因。