Michael Westerman

La Trobe University · Genetics Department, Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering

Global biodiversity loss continues unabated, and in Australia, the rate of recent mammal extinctions is among the worst in the world. Meanwhile, the diversity among and within many endemic mammal species remains undescribed. This information is crucial to delineate species boundaries and thus inform decision‐making for conservation. Sminthopsis vir...

The stripe-faced dunnart (Sminthopsis macroura) is one of the most widespread dasyurids in Australia, occurring mostly in semiarid and arid habitats. It is not known to inhabit coastal regions of southern Australia, and no records have previously been recorded from latitudes greater than 28.5°S in Western Australia. Following the capture of an indi...

A detailed synthesis of dasyurid evolutionary biology for students, teachers and researchers.

The marsupial family Dasyuridae has a history of study extending from 18th century naturalists to the modern genomics era. The Evolution of Dasyurid Marsupials: Systematics and Family History tells the story of dasyurid evolution as it unfolded in the context of changing world views on biodiversity, biotic history and scientific methodology, from i...

Morphological and molecular studies have consistently suggested that Sminthopsis, as currently defined, is rendered paraphyletic by the kultarr (Antechinomys laniger). They have also suggested a sister relationship between the kultarr and the long-tailed dunnart. Based on DNA sequence data from multiple mitochondrial and nuclear gene loci we reassi...

The mitochondrial genome of the rare endemic New Guinean dasyurid Phascolosorex doriae ( Thomas 1886 ) has been used to clarify relationships within ‘phascolosoricinae’. The mitochondrial genome has the typical gene arrangement seen in other marsupials. Molecular analyses using complete mitogenomes of other dasyurids resolve the red-bellied dasyure...

NA sequencing of specimens of Pseudantechinus found on Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary in the Kimberley region of Western Australia revealed the existence of two species, Ps. macdonnellensis and Ps. ningbing. This is the first record of Ps. macdonnellensis from the Kimberley.

The evolution of Australia’s distinctive marsupial fauna has long been linked to the onset of continent-wide aridity. However, how this profound climate change event affected the diversification of extant lineages is still hotly debated. Here, we assemble a DNA sequence dataset of Macropodoidea—the clade comprising kangaroos and their relatives—tha...

The mitochondrial genome of the rare endemic New Guinean dasyurid Phascolosorex doriae (Thomas 1886) has been used to clarify relationships within ‘phascolosoricinae’. The mitochondrial genome has the typical gene arrangement seen in other marsupials. Molecular analyses using complete mitogenomes of other dasyurids resolve the red-bellied dasyure a...

The evolution of Australia’s distinctive marsupial fauna has long been linked to the onset of continent-wide aridity. However, how this profound climate change event affected the diversification of extant lineages is still hotly debated. Here, we assemble a DNA sequence dataset of Macropodoidea — the clade comprising kangaroos and their relatives —...

Erroneous taxonomic attributions in GenBank accessions can mislead phylogenetic inference and appear to be widespread within genera. We investigate the influence of taxonomic misattributions for reconstructing the phylogeny of three-striped dasyures, which include four recognized Myoictis species (Marsupialia: Dasyuridae) that are distributed acros...

Aim To determine the effects of competition and divergence time on morphological dissimilarity and geographical range overlap between dasyurid species at both regional and local scales. Our hypothesis is that speciation in this group has been largely allopatric at regional scale, but involved morphological divergence at local scale through sympatri...

Southern brown (Isoodon obesulus) and golden (Isoodon auratus) bandicoots are iconic Australian marsupials that have experienced dramatic declines since European settlement. Conservation management programs seek to protect the remaining populations; however, these programs are impeded by major taxonomic uncertainties. We investigated the history of...

Five species are currently recognised in the dasyurid genus Murexia, i.e. longicaudata, naso, habbema, melanurus and rothschildi. Morphological data, including spacing of premolar teeth, the footpads and aspects of external appearance, together with nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from multiple exemplars from across the range of each specie...

The progressive expansion of the Australian arid zone during the last 20 Ma appears to have spurred the diversification of several families of plants, vertebrates and invertebrates yet such taxonomic groups appear to show limited niche radiation. Here, we test whether speciation is associated with niche conservatism (constraints on ecological diver...

The Australasian marsupial family Dasyuridae exhibits one of the most spectacular species-level diversity of any marsupial group. The existence of such exceptional species and phenotypic diversity is commonly attributed to ecological opportunity (EO). According to the EO hypothesis, organisms freed from the burden of competition may undergo an init...

The status of Pseudantechinus roryi relative to its congeners has been determined from DNA sequences obtained from both nuclear and mitochondrial gene loci. Although all other recognised species of Pseudantechinus form reciprocally monophyletic lineages in phylogenetic analyses, individuals identified in museum collections as Ps. roryi (including t...

Multiple mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences reveal substantial genetic variation within the dasyurid marsupial genus Planigale, suggesting greater taxonomic diversity than is currently recognised. To further investigate planigale relationships 116 new mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences, including 16 new specimens, were added to our data...

Bandicoots (Peramelemorphia) are a unique order of Australasian marsupials whose sparse fossil record has been used as prima facie evidence for climate change coincident faunal turnover. In particular, the hypothesized replacement of ancient rainforest-dwelling extinct lineages by antecedents of xeric-tolerant extant taxa during the late Miocene (~...

Germline endogenous viral elements (EVEs) genetically preserve viral nucleotide sequences useful to the study of viral evolution, gene mutation, and the phylogenetic relationships among host organisms. Here, we describe a lineage-specific, adeno-associated virus (AAV)-derived endogenous viral element (mAAV-EVE1) found within the germline of numerou...

We reassessed the phylogenetic relationships of dasyuromorphians using a large molecular database comprising previously published and new sequences for both nuclear (nDNA) and mitochondrial (mtDNA) genes from the numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus), most living species of Dasyuridae, and the recently extinct marsupial wolf, Thylacinus cynocephalus. Our...

Phylogenetic relationships among the 6 species of quolls (Dasyurus) are resolved using DNA sequences from 4 mitochondrial and 5 nuclear loci (approximately 15kb) sampled from 1 to 29 individuals per species. Our estimate of quoll phylogeny concurs with previous DNA-based estimates in placing Dasyurus hallucatus as sister to the remaining species, a...

The recent report by Turpin and Bamford (2015) notes a range extension for northern quolls in the Pilbara Bioregion of Western Australia. Mitochondrial DNA sequences derived from five scats show that the new individuals nest within a clade containing all other Pilbara animals. Northern quolls from the Pilbara Bioregion are genetically distinct from...

Maps of the distribution of the two currently recognised species of Dasycercus, D. blythi and D. cristicauda have been prepared following correct identification based on tail morphology of specimens in the modern collections of all Australian museums. Localities in which the remains of Dasycercus have been found in cave deposits have also been mapp...

Sminthopsis is the most speciose genus of living dasyurid marsupials and, along with its close relatives Antechinomys and Ningaui, constitutes the clade Sminthopsini. Phylogenetic relationships among the 23 species in this clade have been the subject of much morphological and molecular investigation, including a recent integration of penis morpholo...

Bandicoots (Peramelemorphia) are a major order of australidelphian marsupials, which despite a fossil record spanning at least the past 25 million years and a pandemic Australasian range, remain poorly understood in terms of their evolutionary relationships. Many living peramelemorphians are critically endangered, making this group an important foc...

Previous analyses of relations, divergence times, and diversification patterns among extant mammalian families have relied on supertree methods and local molecular clocks. We constructed a molecular supermatrix for mammalian families and analyzed these data with likelihood-based methods and relaxed molecular clocks. Phylogenetic analyses resulted i...