| Full text | |
| Author(s): |
Kitahara, Marcelo V.
[1, 2]
;
Lin, Mei-Fang
[3, 4, 5]
;
Foret, Sylvain
[4, 6]
;
Huttley, Gavin
[7]
;
Miller, David J.
[3, 4]
;
Chen, Chaolun Allen
[5, 8, 9]
Total Authors: 6
|
| Affiliation: | [1] Univ Fed Sao Paulo, Dept Ciencias Mar, Sao Paulo - Brazil
[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Ctr Biol Marinha CEBIMar, Sao Paulo - Brazil
[3] James Cook Univ, Sch Pharm & Mol Sci, Townsville, Qld 4811 - Australia
[4] James Cook Univ, ARC Ctr Excellence Coral Reef Studies, Townsville, Qld 4811 - Australia
[5] Acad Sinica, Biodivers Res Ctr, Taipei 115 - Taiwan
[6] Australian Natl Univ, Res Sch Biol, Canberra, ACT - Australia
[7] Australian Natl Univ, John Curtin Sch Med Res, Canberra, ACT 2601 - Australia
[8] Acad Sinica, Taiwan Int Grad Program TIGP Biodivers, Taipei 115 - Taiwan
[9] Natl Taiwan Univ, Inst Oceanog, Taipei 10764 - Taiwan
Total Affiliations: 9
|
| Document type: | Journal article |
| Source: | PLoS One; v. 9, n. 4 APR 16 2014. |
| Web of Science Citations: | 25 |
| Abstract | |
The relationship between Scleractinia and Corallimorpharia, Orders within Anthozoa distinguished by the presence of an aragonite skeleton in the former, is controversial. Although classically considered distinct groups, some phylogenetic analyses have placed the Corallimorpharia within a larger Scleractinia/Corallimorpharia clade, leading to the suggestion that the Corallimorpharia are ``naked corals'' that arose via skeleton loss during the Cretaceous from a Scleractinian ancestor. Scleractinian paraphyly is, however, contradicted by a number of recent phylogenetic studies based on mt nucleotide (nt) sequence data. Whereas the ``naked coral'' hypothesis was based on analysis of the sequences of proteins encoded by a relatively small number of mt genomes, here a much-expanded dataset was used to reinvestigate hexacorallian phylogeny. The initial observation was that, whereas analyses based on nt data support scleractinian monophyly, those based on amino acid (aa) data support the ``naked coral'' hypothesis, irrespective of the method and with very strong support. To better understand the bases of these contrasting results, the effects of systematic errors were examined. Compared to other hexacorallians, the mt genomes of ``Robust'' corals have a higher (A+T) content, codon usage is far more constrained, and the proteins that they encode have a markedly higher phenylalanine content, leading us to suggest that mt DNA repair may be impaired in this lineage. Thus the ``naked coral'' topology could be caused by high levels of saturation in these mitochondrial sequences, long-branch effects or model violations. The equivocal results of these extensive analyses highlight the fundamental problems of basing coral phylogeny on mitochondrial sequence data. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 12/21583-1 - Systematics and evolutionary history of Scleractinia (Cnidaria, Anthozoa) |
| Grantee: | Alvaro Esteves Migotto |
| Support type: | Regular Research Grants |