DOI: 10.5061/dryad.v27k6d0
title: Data from: Phylogeny, macroevolutionary trends and historical biogeography of sloths: insights from a Bayesian morphological clock analysis

description: Sloths, like other xenarthrans, are an extremely interesting group of
 mammals that, after a long history of evolution and diversification in
 South America, became established on islands in the Caribbean and later
 reached North America during the Great American Biotic Interchange. In all
 three regions they were part of the impressive Pleistocene megafauna. Most
 taxa became extinct and only two small, distantly related tree-dwelling
 genera survived. Here we incorporate several recently described genera of
 sloths into an assembled morphological data supermatrix and apply Bayesian
 inference, using phylogenetic and morphological clock methods, to 64 sloth
 genera. Thus, we investigate the evolution of the group in terms of the
 timing of divergence of different lineages and their diversity,
 morphological disparity and biogeographical history. The phylogeny
 obtained supports the existence of the commonly recognized clades for the
 group. Our results provide divergence time estimates for the major clades
 within Folivora that could not be dated with molecular methods. Lineage
 diversity shows an early increase, reaching a peak in the Early Miocene
 followed by a major drop at the end of the Santacrucian (Early Miocene). A
 second peak in the Late Miocene was also followed by a major drop at the
 end of the Huayquerian (Late Miocene). Both events show differential
 impact at the family level. After that, a slight Plio-Pleistocene decline
 was observed before the marked drop with the extinction at the end of the
 Pleistocene. Phenotypic evolutionary rates were high during the early
 history of the clade, mainly associated with Mylodontidae, but rapidly
 decreased to lower values around 25 Ma, whereas Megalonychidae have lower
 values at the beginning followed by a steady increase, peaking during the
 Late Miocene and the Pliocene. Morphological disparity showed a similar
 trend, with an early increase, followed by a slowly increasing phase
 through the Late Oligocene and Early Miocene, and ending with another
 increase beginning at the middle of the Miocene. Biogeographic analysis
 showed southern South America as the most probable area of origin of the
 clade and the main region in which the early diversification events took
 place. Both Megatheriinae and Nothrotheriinae basal nodes were strongly
 correlated with Andean uplift events, whereas the early history of
 Mylodontidae is closely associated with southern South America and also
 shows an early occupation of the northern regions. Within Megalonychidae,
 our results show Choloepus as a descendant of an island dispersing
 ancestor and a probable re-ingression to South America by a clade that
 originated in Central or North America.
description: MatrixData
 supermatrixMRBAYESblockMrBayes file used to perform the Bayesian Inference of Phylogeny.MRBAYEStreeMajority rule tree showing all compatible partitions.BEASTtreeMaximum clade credibility tree.Supplementary InformationTaxon list with sources, biogeographic assignations and tip dates, character list, Treepar and BioGeoBears results and supplementary figures and references.SuppMat.pdfBEASTfileBEAST XML file used to perform the Tip-Dating analysis.