To compare whether we would recover similar tree topologies if we had only sequenced the SH gene, we downloaded all available complete mumps genomes of genotype G, sampled from North America between 2006 and 2018 and truncated our sequences to include only the coding region for SH. We then inferred a maximum likelihood phylogeny using the same procedure as in
Figure 2—figure supplement 2. The vast majority of North American mumps sequences are identical and form a single polytomy, suggesting that SH sequencing alone provides limited resolution for inferring geographic spread. Color represents geographic location, and the x-axis displays divergence in substitutions per site per year. To reduce the number of displayed colors, we grouped the US states by geography as follows: non-Washington West include California and Montana; Midwest USA includes North Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois; South USA includes North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana; Northeast USA includes New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Canadian provinces are also grouped by geographic area.