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Reconciling Apparent Conflicts between Mitochondrial and Nuclear Phylogenies in African Elephants

Overview of attention for article published in PLOS ONE, June 2011
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (90th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
blogs
1 blog
twitter
2 X users
wikipedia
15 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
42 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
158 Mendeley
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Title
Reconciling Apparent Conflicts between Mitochondrial and Nuclear Phylogenies in African Elephants
Published in
PLOS ONE, June 2011
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0020642
Pubmed ID
Authors

Yasuko Ishida, Taras K. Oleksyk, Nicholas J. Georgiadis, Victor A. David, Kai Zhao, Robert M. Stephens, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, Alfred L. Roca

Abstract

Conservation strategies for African elephants would be advanced by resolution of conflicting claims that they comprise one, two, three or four taxonomic groups, and by development of genetic markers that establish more incisively the provenance of confiscated ivory. We addressed these related issues by genotyping 555 elephants from across Africa with microsatellite markers, developing a method to identify those loci most effective at geographic assignment of elephants (or their ivory), and conducting novel analyses of continent-wide datasets of mitochondrial DNA. Results showed that nuclear genetic diversity was partitioned into two clusters, corresponding to African forest elephants (99.5% Cluster-1) and African savanna elephants (99.4% Cluster-2). Hybrid individuals were rare. In a comparison of basal forest "F" and savanna "S" mtDNA clade distributions to nuclear DNA partitions, forest elephant nuclear genotypes occurred only in populations in which S clade mtDNA was absent, suggesting that nuclear partitioning corresponds to the presence or absence of S clade mtDNA. We reanalyzed African elephant mtDNA sequences from 81 locales spanning the continent and discovered that S clade mtDNA was completely absent among elephants at all 30 sampled tropical forest locales. The distribution of savanna nuclear DNA and S clade mtDNA corresponded closely to range boundaries traditionally ascribed to the savanna elephant species based on habitat and morphology. Further, a reanalysis of nuclear genetic assignment results suggested that West African elephants do not comprise a distinct third species. Finally, we show that some DNA markers will be more useful than others for determining the geographic origins of illegal ivory. These findings resolve the apparent incongruence between mtDNA and nuclear genetic patterns that has confounded the taxonomy of African elephants, affirm the limitations of using mtDNA patterns to infer elephant systematics or population structure, and strongly support the existence of two elephant species in Africa.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 2 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 158 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 4 3%
Germany 2 1%
Kenya 1 <1%
Australia 1 <1%
Netherlands 1 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
Sweden 1 <1%
Spain 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 145 92%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 36 23%
Student > Ph. D. Student 30 19%
Student > Master 25 16%
Student > Bachelor 10 6%
Other 10 6%
Other 25 16%
Unknown 22 14%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 88 56%
Environmental Science 24 15%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 10 6%
Medicine and Dentistry 3 2%
Psychology 3 2%
Other 4 3%
Unknown 26 16%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 24. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 July 2020.
All research outputs
#1,515,907
of 24,447,003 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#19,138
of 211,015 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#6,183
of 115,903 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#181
of 1,843 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,447,003 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 211,015 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.6. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 115,903 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 1,843 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its contemporaries.