Figure 1

Evolutionary Distribution of miRNA Families. Phylogenetic tree representing miRNA family gains and losses. Branch width represents the number of miRNA families present among leaves of the branch, while the colour represents significant miRNA family loss (blue) or gain (red). For each of 408 miRNA families present at multiple loci it at least two species, we also build a graphical ‘glyph’. This glyph can be used to quickly assess presence, absence or expansion of families between clades. Each square represents a specific miRNA family. Squares are coloured as follows: white, indicates that this species does not contain a particular family, black indicates that this species contains at least 10 copies of miRNAs within that family. Copies between 1 and 10 are indicated as a rainbow gradient (red through violet). Groups of species are labelled according to the name of the evolutionary branch preceding them.