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Primates, consisting of apes, monkeys, tarsiers, and lemurs, are among the most charismatic and well-studied animals on Earth, yet there is no taxonomically complete molecular timetree for the group. Combining the latest large-scale genomic primate phylogeny of 205 recognized species with the 400-species literature consensus tree available fromTimeTree.orgyields a phylogeny of just 405 primates, with 50 species still missing despite having molecular sequence data in the NCBI GenBank. In this study, we assemble a timetree of 455 primates, incorporating every species for which molecular data are available. We use a synthetic approach consisting of a literature review for published timetrees,de novodating of untimed trees, and assembly of timetrees from novel alignments. The resulting near-complete molecular timetree of primates allows testing of two long-standing alternate hypotheses for the origins of primate biodiversity: whether species richness arises at a constant rate, in which case older clades have more species, or whether some clades exhibit faster rates of speciation than others, in which case, these fast clades would be more species-rich. Consistent with other large-scale macroevolutionary analyses, we found that the speciation rate is similar across the primate tree of life, albeit with some variation in smaller clades. 

Neotropical Freshwater Fish (NFF) fauna exhibits the greatest phenotypic disparity and species richness among all continental aquatic vertebrate faunas, with more than 6,345 species distributed across the mostly tropical regions of Central and South America. The last two decades have seen a proliferation of molecular phylogenies, often at the species level, covering almost all 875 valid NFF genera. This study presents the most comprehensive genome-wide, time-calibrated phylogenetic hypothesis of NFF species to date, based on DNA sequences generated over decades through the collaborative efforts of the multinational ichthyological research community. Our purpose is to build and curate an extensive molecular dataset allowing researchers to evaluate macroevolutionary hypotheses in the NFF while facilitating continuous refinement and expansion. Using thousands of DNA sequences from dozens of studies, we compiled a supermatrix of 51 markers for 5,984 taxa, representing 3,167 NFF species. Based on this dataset, we built the most species-rich time-calibrated phylogeny of the NFF taxa to date, summarizing the collective efforts of the ichthyological research community since the midpoint of the last century. We provide a summary review of this remarkable evolutionary history and hope this dataset provides a framework for forthcoming studies of the NFF fauna, documenting compelling, emergent patterns in the world’s most diverse continental vertebrate fauna.