Improved phylogenetic resolution within Siphonophora (Cnidaria) with implications for trait evolution.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Munro C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6064665 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundPolypodium hydriforme is a parasite with an unusual life cycle and peculiar morphology, both of which have made its systematic position uncertain. Polypodium has traditionally been considered a cnidarian because it possesses nematocysts, the stinging structures characteristic of this phylum. However, recent molecular phylogenetic studies using 18S rDNA sequence data have challenged this interpretation, and have shown that Polypodium is a close relative to myxozoans and together they share a closer affinity to bilaterians than cnidarians. Due to the variable rates of 18S rDNA sequences, these results have been suggested to be an artifact of long-branch attraction (LBA). A recent study, using multiple protein coding markers, shows that the myxozoan Buddenbrockia, is nested within cnidarians. Polypodium was not included in this study. To further investigate the phylogenetic placement of Polypodium, we have performed phylogenetic analyses of metazoans with 18S and partial 28S rDNA sequences in a large dataset that includes Polypodium and a comprehensive sampling of cnidarian taxa.ResultsAnalyses of a combined dataset of 18S and partial 28S sequences, and partial 28S alone, support the placement of Polypodium within Cnidaria. Removal of the long-branched myxozoans from the 18S dataset also results in Polypodium being nested within Cnidaria. These results suggest that previous reports showing that Polypodium and Myxozoa form a sister group to Bilateria were an artifact of long-branch attraction.ConclusionBy including 28S rDNA sequences and a comprehensive sampling of cnidarian taxa, we demonstrate that previously conflicting hypotheses concerning the phylogenetic placement of Polypodium can be reconciled. Specifically, the data presented provide evidence that Polypodium is indeed a cnidarian and is either the sister taxon to Hydrozoa, or part of the hydrozoan clade, Leptothecata. The former hypothesis is consistent with the traditional view that Polypodium should be placed in its own cnidarian class, Polypodiozoa.
| S-EPMC2396633 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Regression analysis using line equations has been broadly applied in studying the evolutionary relationship between the response trait and its covariates. However, the characteristics among closely related species in nature present abundant diversities where the nonlinear relationship between traits have been frequently observed. By treating the evolution of quantitative traits along a phylogenetic tree as a set of continuous stochastic variables, statistical models for describing the dynamics of the optimum of the response trait and its covariates are built herein. Analytical representations for the response trait variables, as well as their optima among a group of related species, are derived. Due to the models' lack of tractable likelihood, a procedure that implements the Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) technique is applied for statistical inference. Simulation results show that the new models perform well where the posterior means of the parameters are close to the true parameters. Empirical analysis supports the new models when analyzing the trait relationship among kangaroo species.
| S-EPMC7916804 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Statistical non-independence of species' biological traits is recognized in most traits under selection. Yet, whether or not the evolutionary rates of such biological traits are statistically non-independent remains to be tested. Here, we test the hypothesis that phenotypic evolutionary rates are non-independent, i.e. contain phylogenetic signal, using empirical rates of evolution in three separate traits: body mass in mammals, beak shape in birds and bite force in amniotes. Specifically, we test if evolutionary rates are phylogenetically interdependent. We find evidence for phylogenetic signal in evolutionary rates in all three case studies. While phylogenetic signal diminishes deeper in time, this is reflective of statistical power owing to small sample and effect sizes. When effect size is large, e.g. owing to the presence of fossil tips, we detect high phylogenetic signals even in deeper time slices. Thus, we recommend that rates be treated as being non-independent throughout the evolutionary history of the group of organisms under study, and any summaries or analyses of rates through time-including associations of rates with traits-need to account for the undesired effects of shared ancestry.
| S-EPMC6227862 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Environmental variation favors the evolution of phenotypic plasticity. For many species, we understand the costs and benefits of different phenotypes, but we lack a broad understanding of how plastic traits evolve across large clades. Using identical experiments conducted across North America, we examined prey responses to predator cues. We quantified five life-history traits and the magnitude of their plasticity for 23 amphibian species/populations (spanning three families and five genera) when exposed to no cues, crushed-egg cues, and predatory crayfish cues. Embryonic responses varied considerably among species and phylogenetic signal was common among the traits, whereas phylogenetic signal was rare for trait plasticities. Among trait-evolution models, the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) model provided the best fit or was essentially tied with Brownian motion. Using the best fitting model, evolutionary rates for plasticities were higher than traits for three life-history traits and lower for two. These data suggest that the evolution of life-history traits in amphibian embryos is more constrained by a species' position in the phylogeny than is the evolution of life history plasticities. The fact that an OU model of trait evolution was often a good fit to patterns of trait variation may indicate adaptive optima for traits and their plasticities.
| S-EPMC6131697 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A number of methods have been developed for modeling the evolution of a quantitative trait on a phylogeny. These methods have received renewed interest in the context of genome-wide studies of gene expression, in which the expression levels of many genes can be modeled as quantitative traits. We here develop a new method for joint analyses of quantitative traits within- and between species, the Expression Variance and Evolution (EVE) model. The model parameterizes the ratio of population to evolutionary expression variance, facilitating a wide variety of analyses, including a test for lineage-specific shifts in expression level, and a phylogenetic ANOVA that can detect genes with increased or decreased ratios of expression divergence to diversity, analogous to the famous Hudson Kreitman Aguadé (HKA) test used to detect selection at the DNA level. We use simulations to explore the properties of these tests under a variety of circumstances and show that the phylogenetic ANOVA is more accurate than the standard ANOVA (no accounting for phylogeny) sometimes used in transcriptomics. We then apply the EVE model to a mammalian phylogeny of 15 species typed for expression levels in liver tissue. We identify genes with high expression divergence between species as candidates for expression level adaptation, and genes with high expression diversity within species as candidates for expression level conservation and/or plasticity. Using the test for lineage-specific expression shifts, we identify several candidate genes for expression level adaptation on the catarrhine and human lineages, including genes putatively related to dietary changes in humans. We compare these results to those reported previously using a model which ignores expression variance within species, uncovering important differences in performance. We demonstrate the necessity for a phylogenetic model in comparative expression studies and show the utility of the EVE model to detect expression divergence, diversity, and branch-specific shifts.
| S-EPMC4635652 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Y-chromosome Haplogroup O2a1c-002611 is one of the dominant lineages of East Asians and Southeast Asians. However, its internal phylogeny remains insufficiently investigated. In this study, we genotyped 89 new highly informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 305 individuals with Haplogroup O2a1c-002611 identified from 2139 Han Chinese males. Two major branches were identified, O2a1c1-F18 and O2a1c2-L133.2 and the first was further divided into two main subclades, O2a1c1a-F11 and O2a1c1b-F449, accounting for 11.13% and 2.20% of Han Chinese, respectively. In Haplogroup O2a1c1a-F11, we also determined seven sublineages with quite different frequency distributions in Han Chinese ranging from 0.187% to 3.553%, implying they might have different demographic history. The reconstructed haplogroup tree for all the major clades within Haplogroup O2a1c-002611 permits better resolution of male lineages in population studies of East Asia and Southeast Asia. The dataset generated in the present study are also valuable for forensic identification and paternity tests in China.
| S-EPMC5430735 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Understanding the processes that give rise to quantitative measurements associated with molecular sequence data remains an important issue in statistical phylogenetics. Examples of such measurements include geographic coordinates in the context of phylogeography and phenotypic traits in the context of comparative studies. A popular approach is to model the evolution of continuously varying traits as a Brownian diffusion process acting on a phylogenetic tree. However, standard Brownian diffusion is quite restrictive and may not accurately characterize certain trait evolutionary processes. Here, we relax one of the major restrictions of standard Brownian diffusion by incorporating a nontrivial estimable mean into the process. We introduce a relaxed directional random walk (RDRW) model for the evolution of multivariate continuously varying traits along a phylogenetic tree. Notably, the RDRW model accommodates branch-specific variation of directional trends while preserving model identifiability. Furthermore, our development of a computationally efficient dynamic programming approach to compute the data likelihood enables scaling of our method to large data sets frequently encountered in phylogenetic comparative studies and viral evolution. We implement the RDRW model in a Bayesian inference framework to simultaneously reconstruct the evolutionary histories of molecular sequence data and associated multivariate continuous trait data, and provide tools to visualize evolutionary reconstructions. We demonstrate the performance of our model on synthetic data, and we illustrate its utility in two viral examples. First, we examine the spatiotemporal spread of HIV-1 in central Africa and show that the RDRW model uncovers a clearer, more detailed picture of the dynamics of viral dispersal than standard Brownian diffusion. Second, we study antigenic evolution in the context of HIV-1 resistance to three broadly neutralizing antibodies. Our analysis reveals evidence of a continuous drift at the HIV-1 population level towards enhanced resistance to neutralization by the VRC01 monoclonal antibody over the course of the epidemic. [Brownian Motion; Diffusion Processes; Phylodynamics; Phylogenetics; Phylogeography; Trait Evolution.].
| S-EPMC6075548 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Leptothecata are hydrozoans whose hydranths are covered by perisarc and gonophores and whose medusae bear gonads on their radial canals. They develop complex polypoid colonies and exhibit considerable morphological variation among species with respect to growth, defensive structures and mode of development. For instance, several lineages within this order have lost the medusa stage. Depending on the author, traditional taxonomy in hydrozoans may be either polyp- or medusa-oriented. Therefore, the absence of the latter stage in some lineages may lead to very different classification schemes. Molecular data have proved useful in elucidating this taxonomic challenge. We analyzed a super matrix of new and published rRNA gene sequences (16S, 18S and 28S), employing newly proposed methods to measure branch support and improve phylogenetic signal. Our analysis recovered new clades not recognized by traditional taxonomy and corroborated some recently proposed taxa. We offer a thorough taxonomic revision of the Leptothecata, erecting new orders, suborders, infraorders and families. We also discuss the origination and diversification dynamics of the group from a macroevolutionary perspective.
| S-EPMC4731775 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Since phylogenetic data provide the evolutionary history of the species and traits are the result of adaptation to the environmental conditions, joint analysis of these two aspects and ecological data may illuminate that how ecological processes affect the evolution of species and assembly of communities. In this study, we compared the community structure of sibling communities in order to illuminate the influence of environmental variability. We chose different Calligonum communities as research subjects which grow in active sand dunes and stabilized sand fields. Our results show that species which co-occurred in C. rubicundum community have greater phylogenetic evenness compared to species in other communities where co-occurring plants had similar traits. Soil variability might legitimately explain this result. Based on the similarity between the pattern of trait diversity and the pattern of phylogenetic diversity, we inferred that the evolution of traits is conservative and species of all but C. rubicundum communities are under more intense selection pressure.
| S-EPMC4464486 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Cnidaria, the sister group to Bilateria, is a highly diverse group of animals in terms of morphology, lifecycles, ecology, and development. How this diversity originated and evolved is not well understood because phylogenetic relationships among major cnidarian lineages are unclear, and recent studies present contrasting phylogenetic hypotheses. Here, we use transcriptome data from 15 newly-sequenced species in combination with 26 publicly available genomes and transcriptomes to assess phylogenetic relationships among major cnidarian lineages. Phylogenetic analyses using different partition schemes and models of molecular evolution, as well as topology tests for alternative phylogenetic relationships, support the monophyly of Medusozoa, Anthozoa, Octocorallia, Hydrozoa, and a clade consisting of Staurozoa, Cubozoa, and Scyphozoa. Support for the monophyly of Hexacorallia is weak due to the equivocal position of Ceriantharia. Taken together, these results further resolve deep cnidarian relationships, largely support traditional phylogenetic views on relationships, and provide a historical framework for studying the evolutionary processes involved in one of the most ancient animal radiations.
| S-EPMC4605497 | biostudies-literature