Dataset Information

A phylogeny of the family Poritidae (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) based on molecular and morphological analyses.

ABSTRACT: The family Poritidae formerly included 6 genera: Alveopora, Goniopora, Machadoporites, Porites, Poritipora, and Stylaraea. Morphologically, the genera can be differentiated based on the number of tentacles, the number of septa and their arrangement, the length of the polyp column, and the diameter of the corallites. However, the phylogenetic relationships within and between the genera are unknown or contentious. On the one hand, Alveopora has been transferred to the Acroporidae recently because it was shown to be more closely related to this family than to the Poritidae by previous molecular studies. On the other hand, Goniopora is morphologically similar to 2 recently described genera, Machadoporites and Poritipora, particularly with regard to the number of septa (approximately 24), but they have not yet been investigated at the molecular level. In this study, we analyzed 93 samples from all 5 poritid genera and Alveopora using 2 genetic markers (the barcoding region of the mitochondrial COI and the ITS region of the nuclear rDNA) to investigate their phylogenetic relationships and to revise their taxonomy. The reconstructed molecular trees confirmed that Alveopora is genetically distant from all poritid genera but closely related to the family Acroporidae, whereas the other genera are genetically closely related. The molecular trees also revealed that Machadoporites and Poritipora were indistinguishable from Goniopora. However, Goniopora stutchburyi was genetically isolated from the other congeneric species and formed a sister group to Goniopora together with Porites and Stylaraea, thus suggesting that 24 septa could be an ancestral feature in the Poritidae. Based on these data, we move G. stutchburyi into a new genus, Bernardpora gen. nov., whereas Machadoporites and Poritipora are merged with Goniopora.

SUBMITTER: Kitano YF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4037213 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A phylogeny of the family Poritidae (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) based on molecular and morphological analyses.

Kitano Yuko F YF Benzoni Francesca F Arrigoni Roberto R Shirayama Yoshihisa Y Wallace Carden C CC Fukami Hironobu H

PloS one 20140528 5

The family Poritidae formerly included 6 genera: Alveopora, Goniopora, Machadoporites, Porites, Poritipora, and Stylaraea. Morphologically, the genera can be differentiated based on the number of tentacles, the number of septa and their arrangement, the length of the polyp column, and the diameter of the corallites. However, the phylogenetic relationships within and between the genera are unknown or contentious. On the one hand, Alveopora has been transferred to the Acroporidae recently because ...[more]

PMID: 24871224

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Project description:BackgroundClassical morphological taxonomy places the approximately 1400 recognized species of Scleractinia (hard corals) into 27 families, but many aspects of coral evolution remain unclear despite the application of molecular phylogenetic methods. In part, this may be a consequence of such studies focusing on the reef-building (shallow water and zooxanthellate) Scleractinia, and largely ignoring the large number of deep-sea species. To better understand broad patterns of coral evolution, we generated molecular data for a broad and representative range of deep sea scleractinians collected off New Caledonia and Australia during the last decade, and conducted the most comprehensive molecular phylogenetic analysis to date of the order Scleractinia.MethodologyPartial (595 bp) sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) gene were determined for 65 deep-sea (azooxanthellate) scleractinians and 11 shallow-water species. These new data were aligned with 158 published sequences, generating a 234 taxon dataset representing 25 of the 27 currently recognized scleractinian families.Principal findings/conclusionsThere was a striking discrepancy between the taxonomic validity of coral families consisting predominantly of deep-sea or shallow-water species. Most families composed predominantly of deep-sea azooxanthellate species were monophyletic in both maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses but, by contrast (and consistent with previous studies), most families composed predominantly of shallow-water zooxanthellate taxa were polyphyletic, although Acroporidae, Poritidae, Pocilloporidae, and Fungiidae were exceptions to this general pattern. One factor contributing to this inconsistency may be the greater environmental stability of deep-sea environments, effectively removing taxonomic "noise" contributed by phenotypic plasticity. Our phylogenetic analyses imply that the most basal extant scleractinians are azooxanthellate solitary corals from deep-water, their divergence predating that of the robust and complex corals. Deep-sea corals are likely to be critical to understanding anthozoan evolution and the origins of the Scleractinia.

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Dataset Information

A phylogeny of the family Poritidae (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) based on molecular and morphological analyses.

Publications

A phylogeny of the family Poritidae (Cnidaria, Scleractinia) based on molecular and morphological analyses.

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