Merging scleractinian genera: the overwhelming genetic similarity between solitary Desmophyllum and colonial Lophelia
[Background] In recent years, several types of molecular markers and new microscale skeletal characters have shown potential as powerful tools for phylogenetic reconstructions and higher-level taxonomy of scleractinian corals. Nonetheless, discrimination of closely related taxa is still highly contr...
| Published in: | BMC Evolutionary Biology |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
BioMed Central
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10261/143362 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-016-0654-8 https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000780 |
| Summary: | [Background] In recent years, several types of molecular markers and new microscale skeletal characters have shown potential as powerful tools for phylogenetic reconstructions and higher-level taxonomy of scleractinian corals. Nonetheless, discrimination of closely related taxa is still highly controversial in scleractinian coral research. Here we used newly sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes and 30 microsatellites to define the genetic divergence between two closely related azooxanthellate taxa of the family Caryophylliidae: solitary Desmophyllum dianthus and colonial Lophelia pertusa. [Results] In the mitochondrial control region, an astonishing 99.8 % of nucleotides between L. pertusa and D. dianthus were identical. Variability of the mitochondrial genomes of the two species is represented by only 12 non-synonymous out of 19 total nucleotide substitutions. Microsatellite sequence (37 loci) analysis of L. pertusa and D. dianthus showed genetic similarity is about 97 %. Our results also indicated that L. pertusa and D. dianthus show high skeletal plasticity in corallum shape and similarity in skeletal ontogeny, micromorphological (septal and wall granulations) and microstructural characters (arrangement of rapid accretion deposits, thickening deposits). [Conclusions] Molecularly and morphologically, the solitary Desmophyllum and the dendroid Lophelia appear to be significantly more similar to each other than other unambiguous coral genera analysed to date. This consequently leads to ascribe both taxa under the generic name Desmophyllum (priority by date of publication). Findings of this study demonstrate that coloniality may not be a robust taxonomic character in scleractinian corals. We acknowledge the captain, crew and scientific parties on board the RRVV Meteor, Urania, Belgica, Universitatis, Marion Dufresne, and Celtic Explorer for their collaboration at sea during the following oceanographic cruises: M70-1, CORSARO, MEDCOR 2009, Belgica 2009/14, Belgica 2012/16 ("CWC Moira Mound", FP7/2007–2013 EuroFLEETS under grant agreement n° 228344), Magic/CoralFISH 2010, MD194 ("Gateway”, FP7/2007–2013 EuroFLEETS under grant agreement n° 228344). We further acknowledge the EU FP6 Hermes (GOCE-CT-2005-511234-1) and FP7 Hermione programmes Hermione (grant agreement no: 226354). The authors are particularly grateful to Karen Miller (Australian Institute of Marine Science), Virginia Polonio and Javier Cristobo (Instituto Español de Oceanografía) for providing samples from South Pacific Ocean (Expeditions SS02/2007, TAN 0803) and South Atlantic Ocean (Patagonia 0209) respectively. We are grateful to Melinda Modrell for carefully revising the English version. The first author is deeply grateful to Felipe Gonzalez (Reserva Añihue) and Flavio Gaspari for fieldwork help in Chile, and to Miguel Angel Alonso-Zarazaga (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, MNCN-CSIC) for his valuable help with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). Micro-CT scans were performed in the NanoFun laboratory (Institute of Paleobiology, Warsaw, Poland) and co-financed by the European Regional Development. We thank the editor of the journal and two anonymous referees for comments and suggestions that improved the text. Ismar-Bologna scientific contribution n. 1871. We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI). Peer reviewed |
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