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Abstract
The white-tailed tropicbird, Phaethon lepturus (Pelecaniformes, Phaethontidae) is a tropicbird, smallest of three closely related seabirds of the tropical oceans and smallest member of the order Pelecaniformes. Here, we first determined the complete mitochondrial genome of while-tailed tropicbird. The mitogenome (17,773 bp) was composed of 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes, and 1 putative control region. Most protein-coding genes started with a traditional ATG codon except for COX1, COX2, and ND3, which initiated with non-typical start codon GTG, GTG, and ATA instead, respectively, and terminated with the mitochondria stop codon (TAA/TCC/AGG/AGA). The mitogenome structural organization was identical to the same genus species Phaethon rubricauda. The overall AT content was 52.04%, which was higher than GC. To obtain the phylogenetic status of Phaethon lepturus, we constructed the species phylogenetic tree together with the 12 protein-coding genes of nine other closely species. We expected that the complete mitogenome of while-tailed tropicbird would contribute to address taxonomic issues and study the related evolution events.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank BGI for generating the sequencing data of the white-tailed tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus) used in this work. Special thanks to the anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments on the manuscript.
Declaration of interest
The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exists. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.