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The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals

BACKGROUND: Scleractinian corals are currently a focus of major interest because of their ecological importance and the uncertain fate of coral reefs in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressure. Despite this, remarkably little is known about the evolutionary origins of corals. The Scleractinia...

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Autores principales: Stolarski, Jarosław, Kitahara, Marcelo V, Miller, David J, Cairns, Stephen D, Mazur, Maciej, Meibom, Anders
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3224782/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22034946
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-11-316
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author Stolarski, Jarosław
Kitahara, Marcelo V
Miller, David J
Cairns, Stephen D
Mazur, Maciej
Meibom, Anders
author_facet Stolarski, Jarosław
Kitahara, Marcelo V
Miller, David J
Cairns, Stephen D
Mazur, Maciej
Meibom, Anders
author_sort Stolarski, Jarosław
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Scleractinian corals are currently a focus of major interest because of their ecological importance and the uncertain fate of coral reefs in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressure. Despite this, remarkably little is known about the evolutionary origins of corals. The Scleractinia suddenly appear in the fossil record about 240 Ma, but the range of morphological variation seen in these Middle Triassic fossils is comparable to that of modern scleractinians, implying much earlier origins that have so far remained elusive. A significant weakness in reconstruction(s) of early coral evolution is that deep-sea corals have been poorly represented in molecular phylogenetic analyses. RESULTS: By adding new data from a large and representative range of deep-water species to existing molecular datasets and applying a relaxed molecular clock, we show that two exclusively deep-sea families, the Gardineriidae and Micrabaciidae, diverged prior to the Complexa/Robusta coral split around 425 Ma, thereby pushing the evolutionary origin of scleractinian corals deep into the Paleozoic. CONCLUSIONS: The early divergence and distinctive morphologies of the extant gardineriid and micrabaciid corals suggest a link with Ordovician "scleractiniamorph" fossils that were previously assumed to represent extinct anthozoan skeletonized lineages. Therefore, scleractinian corals most likely evolved from Paleozoic soft-bodied ancestors. Modern shallow-water Scleractinia, which are dependent on symbionts, appear to have had several independent origins from solitary, non-symbiotic precursors. The Scleractinia have survived periods of massive climate change in the past, suggesting that as a lineage they may be less vulnerable to future changes than often assumed.
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spelling pubmed-32247822011-11-28 The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals Stolarski, Jarosław Kitahara, Marcelo V Miller, David J Cairns, Stephen D Mazur, Maciej Meibom, Anders BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Scleractinian corals are currently a focus of major interest because of their ecological importance and the uncertain fate of coral reefs in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressure. Despite this, remarkably little is known about the evolutionary origins of corals. The Scleractinia suddenly appear in the fossil record about 240 Ma, but the range of morphological variation seen in these Middle Triassic fossils is comparable to that of modern scleractinians, implying much earlier origins that have so far remained elusive. A significant weakness in reconstruction(s) of early coral evolution is that deep-sea corals have been poorly represented in molecular phylogenetic analyses. RESULTS: By adding new data from a large and representative range of deep-water species to existing molecular datasets and applying a relaxed molecular clock, we show that two exclusively deep-sea families, the Gardineriidae and Micrabaciidae, diverged prior to the Complexa/Robusta coral split around 425 Ma, thereby pushing the evolutionary origin of scleractinian corals deep into the Paleozoic. CONCLUSIONS: The early divergence and distinctive morphologies of the extant gardineriid and micrabaciid corals suggest a link with Ordovician "scleractiniamorph" fossils that were previously assumed to represent extinct anthozoan skeletonized lineages. Therefore, scleractinian corals most likely evolved from Paleozoic soft-bodied ancestors. Modern shallow-water Scleractinia, which are dependent on symbionts, appear to have had several independent origins from solitary, non-symbiotic precursors. The Scleractinia have survived periods of massive climate change in the past, suggesting that as a lineage they may be less vulnerable to future changes than often assumed. BioMed Central 2011-10-28 /pmc/articles/PMC3224782/ /pubmed/22034946 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-11-316 Text en Copyright ©2011 Stolarski et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Stolarski, Jarosław
Kitahara, Marcelo V
Miller, David J
Cairns, Stephen D
Mazur, Maciej
Meibom, Anders
The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals
title The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals
title_full The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals
title_fullStr The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals
title_full_unstemmed The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals
title_short The ancient evolutionary origins of Scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals
title_sort ancient evolutionary origins of scleractinia revealed by azooxanthellate corals
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3224782/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22034946
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-11-316
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