Fig 1. Phylogenetic tree built using MEGA software for the sequenced T2R genes in the different ruminant species.

The evolutionary history was inferred using the Neighbor-Joining method [22]. The bootstrap consensus tree inferred from 500 replicates [21] is taken to represent the evolutionary history of the taxa analyzed [21]. Branches corresponding to partitions reproduced in less than 50% bootstrap replicates are collapsed. The evolutionary distances were computed using the JTT matrix-based method [23] and are in the units of the number of base substitutions per site. The analysis involved 55 amino acid sequences. All positions containing gaps and missing data were eliminated. There were a total of 96 positions in the final dataset. Evolutionary analyses were conducted in MEGA6 [20].