African papionin monkeys (baboons, macaques, and mangabeys) are morphologically diverse and live in a wide variety of habitats. They provide an excellent model for studying the processes and patterns of primate and human evolution. To understand how different features have evolved and if they have evolved more than once, an accurate phylogeny needs to be inferred. To best infer such a phylogeny, multiple independent molecular sequences or markers need to be analyzed. To this end, a large comparative multilocus dataset of several thousand to over ten thousand base pairs of mitochondrial and nuclear (X chromosomal, Y chromosomal, autosomal) DNA will be sequenced in a variety of African papionins. Additionally, 40 Alu insertions will be genotyped. These markers have proven extremely powerful in evolutionary analyses as their shared presence in a genomic location is a strong indicator of relationship. This study will concentrate on the mangabeys (genera Cercocebus and Lophocebus) including the two most recently discovered species C. sanjei and "Lophocebus" kipunji. Preliminary analyses suggest that there is a complex evolutionary history within the Cercocebus/Mandrillus clade with the long faced large bodied mandrills and drills perhaps being more closely related to some of the smaller bodied short faced species of Cercocebus than these species are to other members of their own genus. Similarly, the relationships amongst gelada and other baboons to the species of Lophocebus may be equally complex. The goal of this project is to generate a robust phylogeny of the African papionins in order to allow better inferences of how similar morphological features such as body size and shape of the skull have evolved independently multiple times as well as their overall evolutionary history and development.
Broader impacts of this study will include the training of several graduate, undergraduate, and even high school students in the latest molecular laboratory techniques and the increasingly important analytical methods used to understand molecular data. These Old World primates are also critical in understanding the evolution of SIV/HIV and other pathogens. Having a robust phylogeny will allow researchers to infer patterns of host-switching and co-evolution with such pathogens. Almost all of these African primates are critically endangered and the data collected in this study will allow for the better delineation of groups in dire need of conservation.
