Data from: Multiple loci and complete taxonomic sampling resolve the phylogeny and biogeographic history of tenrecs (Mammalia: Tenrecidae) and reveal higher speciation rates in Madagascar’s humid forests

The family Tenrecidae (tenrecs) is one of only four extant terrestrial
mammal lineages to have colonized and diversified on Madagascar. Over the
past 15 years, several studies have disagreed on relationships among major
tenrec lineages, resulting in multiple reinterpretations of the number and
timing of historical transoceanic dispersal events between Africa and
Madagascar. We reconstructed the phylogeny of Tenrecidae using multiple
loci from all recognized extant species and estimated divergence timing
using six fossil calibrations within Afrotheria. All phylogenetic analyses
strongly support monophyly of the Malagasy tenrecs, and our divergence
timing analysis places their colonization of the island at 30-56 Ma. Our
comprehensive phylogeny supports three important taxonomic revisions that
reflect the evolutionary history of tenrecs: (1) we formally elevate the
African otter shrews to their own family Potamogalidae, thereby rendering
extant Tenrecidae entirely endemic to Madagascar, (2) we subsume the
semiaquatic genus Limnogale within the shrew-tenrec genus Microgale, and
(3) we re-elevate the two largest-bodied shrew tenrecs, Microgale dobsoni
and M. talazaci, to the genus Nesogale Thomas 1918. Finally, we use
recently summarized habitat data to test the hypothesis that
diversification rates differ between humid and arid habitats on
Madagascar, and we compare three common methods for ancestral
biogeographic reconstruction. These analyses suggest higher speciation
rates in humid habitats and reveal a minimum of three and more likely five
independent transitions to arid habitats. Our results resolve the
relationships among previously recalcitrant taxa, illuminate the timing
and mechanisms of major biogeographic patterns in an extraordinary example
of an island radiation, and permit the first comprehensive,
phylogenetically consistent taxonomy of Madagascar’s tenrecs.