Molecular fossils illuminate the evolution of retroviruses following a macroevolutionary transition from land to water
Fig 5
Evolutionary dynamics of cetacean ERVs.
(A) Distribution of the genetic distance between 5’- and 3’ LTRs of complete ERVs in 315 cetacean ERV lineages. Blue and orange lines represent the distribution of the genetic distance between 5’- and 3’ LTRs of complete ERVs in the LTW and the SHS ERV lineages, respectively. The purple and green boxes represent 95% highest posterior distributions (HPD) of the genetic distance of introns between B. acutorostrata and H. amphibious (reflecting the divergence between cetaceans and hippopotamuses) and between B. acutorostrata and O. orca (reflecting the divergence between mysticetes and odontocetes) with dashed lines as the means. (B) Distribution of the genetic distance between 5’- and 3’- LTRs of complete ERVs in different cetacean ERV lineages under the SHS scenario. The purple and green boxes represent 95% HPD of the genetic distance of introns between B. acutorostrata and H. amphibious and between B. acutorostrata and O. orca, respectively, with dashed lines as the means.