Evolution of life cycle, colony morphology, and host specificity in the family Hydractiniidae (Hydrozoa, Cnidaria).

Biased transitions are common throughout the tree of life. The class hydrozoa is no exception, having lost the feeding medusa stage at least 70 times. The family hydractiniidae includes one lineage with pelagic medusae (Podocoryna) and several without (e.g., Hydractinia). The benthic colony stage also varies widely in host specificity and in colony form. The five-gene phylogeny presented here requires multiple transitions between character states for medusae, host specificity, and colony phenotype. Significant phylogenetic correlations exist between medusoid form, colony morphology, and host specificity. Species with nonfeeding medusae are usually specialized on a single host type, and reticulate colonies are correlated with nonmotile hosts. The history of feeding medusae is less certain. Podocoryna is nested within five lineages lacking medusae. This requires either repeated losses of medusae, or the remarkable re-evolution of a feeding medusa after at least 150 million years. Traditional ancestral reconstruction favors medusa regain, but a likelihood framework testing biased transitions cannot distinguish between multiple losses versus regain. A hypothesis of multiple losses of feeding medusae requires transient selection pressure favoring such a loss. Populations of species with feeding medusae are always locally rare and lack of feeding medusae does not result in restricted species distribution around the world.

Historical effects on beta diversity and community assembly in Amazonian trees.

We present a unique perspective on the role of historical processes in community assembly by synthesizing analyses of species turnover among communities with environmental data and independent, population genetic-derived estimates of among-community dispersal. We sampled floodplain and terra firme communities of the diverse tree genus Inga (Fabaceae) across a 250-km transect in Amazonian Peru and found patterns of distance-decay in compositional similarity in both habitat types. However, conventional analyses of distance-decay masked a zone of increased species turnover present in the middle of the transect. We estimated past seed dispersal among the same communities by examining geographic plastid DNA variation for eight widespread Inga species and uncovered a population genetic break in the majority of species that is geographically coincident with the zone of increased species turnover. Analyses of these and 12 additional Inga species shared between two communities located on opposite sides of the zone showed that the populations experienced divergence 42,000-612,000 y ago. Our results suggest that the observed distance decay is the result not of environmental gradients or dispersal limitation coupled with ecological drift--as conventionally interpreted under neutral ecological theory--but rather of secondary contact between historically separated communities. Thus, even at this small spatial scale, historical processes seem to significantly impact species' distributions and community assembly. Other documented zones of increased species turnover found in the western Amazon basin or elsewhere may be related to similar historical processes.

Arthropod relationships revealed by phylogenomic analysis of nuclear protein-coding sequences.

The remarkable antiquity, diversity and ecological significance of arthropods have inspired numerous attempts to resolve their deep phylogenetic history, but the results of two decades of intensive molecular phylogenetics have been mixed. The discovery that terrestrial insects (Hexapoda) are more closely related to aquatic Crustacea than to the terrestrial centipedes and millipedes (Myriapoda) was an early, if exceptional, success. More typically, analyses based on limited samples of taxa and genes have generated results that are inconsistent, weakly supported and highly sensitive to analytical conditions. Here we present strongly supported results from likelihood, Bayesian and parsimony analyses of over 41 kilobases of aligned DNA sequence from 62 single-copy nuclear protein-coding genes from 75 arthropod species. These species represent every major arthropod lineage, plus five species of tardigrades and onychophorans as outgroups. Our results strongly support Pancrustacea (Hexapoda plus Crustacea) but also strongly favour the traditional morphology-based Mandibulata (Myriapoda plus Pancrustacea) over the molecule-based Paradoxopoda (Myriapoda plus Chelicerata). In addition to Hexapoda, Pancrustacea includes three major extant lineages of 'crustaceans', each spanning a significant range of morphological disparity. These are Oligostraca (ostracods, mystacocarids, branchiurans and pentastomids), Vericrustacea (malacostracans, thecostracans, copepods and branchiopods) and Xenocarida (cephalocarids and remipedes). Finally, within Pancrustacea we identify Xenocarida as the long-sought sister group to the Hexapoda, a result confirming that 'crustaceans' are not monophyletic. These results provide a statistically well-supported phylogenetic framework for the largest animal phylum and represent a step towards ending the often-heated, century-long debate on arthropod relationships.

Evolution of calcium-carbonate skeletons in the Hydractiniidae.

Biomineralization has mostly been studied in the class Anthozoa (Phylum Cnidaria), but very little is known about the evolution of the calcified skeleton in the class Hydrozoa or about the processes leading to its formation. The evolution of the calcified skeleton is here investigated in the hydrozoan family Hydractiniidae. A phylogenetic analysis of ribosomal, mitochondrial, and nuclear-protein-coding DNA sequences supported two independent origins of the calcified skeleton within the Hydractiniidae and indicates a case of parallel evolution, as suspected in the Anthozoa. Neither of the two origins of skeleton in the Hydractiniidae has led to either speciose or numerically abundant species, in contrast with other skeletonized hydrozoan families. Finally, we show that the origin of calcified skeletons in the Hydractiniidae is significantly correlated with the distribution of species with calcium carbonate granules within a polyp's gastrodermal cells. This suggests that the presence of these granules precedes the origin of a full skeleton.

Resolving arthropod phylogeny: exploring phylogenetic signal within 41 kb of protein-coding nuclear gene sequence.

This study attempts to resolve relationships among and within the four basal arthropod lineages (Pancrustacea, Myriapoda, Euchelicerata, Pycnogonida) and to assess the widespread expectation that remaining phylogenetic problems will yield to increasing amounts of sequence data. Sixty-eight regions of 62 protein-coding nuclear genes (approximately 41 kilobases (kb)/taxon) were sequenced for 12 taxonomically diverse arthropod taxa and a tardigrade outgroup. Parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian analyses of total nucleotide data generally strongly supported the monophyly of each of the basal lineages represented by more than one species. Other relationships within the Arthropoda were also supported, with support levels depending on method of analysis and inclusion/exclusion of synonymous changes. Removing third codon positions, where the assumption of base compositional homogeneity was rejected, altered the results. Removing the final class of synonymous mutations--first codon positions encoding leucine and arginine, which were also compositionally heterogeneous--yielded a data set that was consistent with a hypothesis of base compositional homogeneity. Furthermore, under such a data-exclusion regime, all 68 gene regions individually were consistent with base compositional homogeneity. Restricting likelihood analyses to nonsynonymous change recovered trees with strong support for the basal lineages but not for other groups that were variably supported with more inclusive data sets. In a further effort to increase phylogenetic signal, three types of data exploration were undertaken. (1) Individual genes were ranked by their average rate of nonsynonymous change, and three rate categories were assigned--fast, intermediate, and slow. Then, bootstrap analysis of each gene was performed separately to see which taxonomic groups received strong support. Five taxonomic groups were strongly supported independently by two or more genes, and these genes mostly belonged to the slow or intermediate categories, whereas groups supported only by a single gene region tended to be from genes of the fast category, arguing that fast genes provide a less consistent signal. (2) A sensitivity analysis was performed in which increasing numbers of genes were excluded, beginning with the fastest. The number of strongly supported nodes increased up to a point and then decreased slightly. Recovery of Hexapoda required removal of fast genes. Support for Mandibulata (Pancrustacea + Myriapoda) also increased, at times to "strong" levels, with removal of the fastest genes. (3) Concordance selection was evaluated by clustering genes according to their ability to recover Pancrustacea, Euchelicerata, or Myriapoda and analyzing the three clusters separately. All clusters of genes recovered the three concordance clades but were at times inconsistent in the relationships recovered among and within these clades, a result that indicates that the a priori concordance criteria may bias phylogenetic signal in unexpected ways. In a further attempt to increase support of taxonomic relationships, sequence data from 49 additional taxa for three slow genes (i.e., EF-1 alpha, EF-2, and Pol II) were combined with the various 13-taxon data sets. The 62-taxon analyses supported the results of the 13-taxon analyses and provided increased support for additional pancrustacean clades found in an earlier analysis including only EF-1 alpha, EF-2, and Pol II.

From offshore to onshore: multiple origins of shallow-water corals from deep-sea ancestors.

Shallow-water tropical reefs and the deep sea represent the two most diverse marine environments. Understanding the origin and diversification of this biodiversity is a major quest in ecology and evolution. The most prominent and well-supported explanation, articulated since the first explorations of the deep sea, holds that benthic marine fauna originated in shallow, onshore environments, and diversified into deeper waters. In contrast, evidence that groups of marine organisms originated in the deep sea is limited, and the possibility that deep-water taxa have contributed to the formation of shallow-water communities remains untested with phylogenetic methods. Here we show that stylasterid corals (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa: Stylasteridae)--the second most diverse group of hard corals--originated and diversified extensively in the deep sea, and subsequently invaded shallow waters. Our phylogenetic results show that deep-water stylasterid corals have invaded the shallow-water tropics three times, with one additional invasion of the shallow-water temperate zone. Our results also show that anti-predatory innovations arose in the deep sea, but were not involved in the shallow-water invasions. These findings are the first robust evidence that an important group of tropical shallow-water marine animals evolved from deep-water ancestors.

Progressive island colonization and ancient origin of Hawaiian Metrosideros (Myrtaceae).

Knowledge of the evolutionary history of plants that are ecologically dominant in modern ecosystems is critical to understanding the historical development of those ecosystems. Metrosideros is a plant genus found in many ecological and altitudinal zones throughout the Pacific. In the Hawaiian Islands, Metrosideros polymorpha is an ecologically dominant species and is also highly polymorphic in both growth form and ecology. Using 10 non-coding chloroplast regions, we investigated haplotype diversity in the five currently recognized Hawaiian Metrosideros species and an established out-group, Metrosideros collina, from French Polynesia. Multiple haplotype groups were found, but these did not match morphological delimitations. Alternative morphologies sharing the same haplotype, as well as similar morphologies occurring within several distinct island clades, could be the result of developmental plasticity, parallel evolution or chloroplast capture. The geographical structure of the data is consistent with a pattern of age progressive island colonizations and suggests de novo intra-island diversification. If single colonization events resulted in a similar array of morphologies on each island, this would represent parallel radiations within a single, highly polymorphic species. However, we were unable to resolve whether the pattern is instead explained by ancient introgression and incomplete lineage sorting resulting in repeated chloroplast capture. Using several calibration methods, we estimate the colonization of the Hawaiian Islands to be potentially as old as 3.9 (-6.3) Myr with an ancestral position for Kaua'i in the colonization and evolution of Metrosideros in the Hawaiian Islands. This would represent a more ancient arrival of Metrosideros to this region than previous studies have suggested.

Ice-age survival of Atlantic cod: agreement between palaeoecology models and genetics.

Scant scientific attention has been given to the abundance and distribution of marine biota in the face of the lower sea level, and steeper latitudinal gradient in climate, during the ice-age conditions that have dominated the past million years. Here we examine the glacial persistence of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) populations using two ecological-niche-models (ENM) and the first broad synthesis of multi-locus gene sequence data for this species. One ENM uses a maximum entropy approach (Maxent ); the other is a new ENM for Atlantic cod, using ecophysiological parameters based on observed reproductive events rather than adult distribution. Both the ENMs were tested for present-day conditions, then used to hindcast ranges at the last glacial maximum (LGM) ca 21kyr ago, employing climate model data. Although the LGM range of Atlantic cod was much smaller, and fragmented, both the ENMs agreed that populations should have been able to persist in suitable habitat on both sides of the Atlantic. The genetic results showed a degree of trans-Atlantic divergence consistent with genealogically continuous populations on both sides of the North Atlantic since long before the LGM, confirming the ENM results. In contrast, both the ENMs and the genetic data suggest that the Greenland G. morhua population post-dates the LGM.

Hybridization in postglacial marine habitats.

Within the last few million years, repeated invasions from the North Pacific have brought evolutionarily divergent lineages of Macoma balthica clams into contact in the marginal and inland seas of northern Europe (Strelkov et al. 2007). These divergent M. balthica lineages now co-occur and hybridize extensively, blurring the distinction between the lineages and with some populations best described as 'hybrid swarms'. This scenario matches the prediction that hybridization between distinct genetic entities can generate evolutionary novelty, particularly in new environments where hybrid fitness is equal to or exceeds parental types (Arnold 1997; Seehausen 2004).

Taking the first steps towards a standard for reporting on phylogenies: Minimum Information About a Phylogenetic Analysis (MIAPA).

In the eight years since phylogenomics was introduced as the intersection of genomics and phylogenetics, the field has provided fundamental insights into gene function, genome history and organismal relationships. The utility of phylogenomics is growing with the increase in the number and diversity of taxa for which whole genome and large transcriptome sequence sets are being generated. We assert that the synergy between genomic and phylogenetic perspectives in comparative biology would be enhanced by the development and refinement of minimal reporting standards for phylogenetic analyses. Encouraged by the development of the Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) standard, we propose a similar roadmap for the development of a Minimal Information About a Phylogenetic Analysis (MIAPA) standard. Key in the successful development and implementation of such a standard will be broad participation by developers of phylogenetic analysis software, phylogenetic database developers, practitioners of phylogenomics, and journal editors.

Diversity in the weapons of sexual selection: horn evolution in the beetle genus Onthophagus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae).

Both ornaments and weapons of sexual selection frequently exhibit prolific interspecific diversity of form. Yet, most studies of this diversity have focused on ornaments involved with female mate choice, rather than on the weapons of male competition. With few exceptions, the mechanisms of divergence in weapon morphology remain largely unexplored. Here, we characterize the evolutionary radiation of one type of weapon: beetle horns. We use partial sequences from four nuclear and three mitochondrial genes to develop a phylogenetic hypothesis for a worldwide sample of 48 species from the dung beetle genus Onthophagus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae). We then use these data to test for multiple evolutionary origins of horns and to characterize the evolutionary radiation of horns. Although our limited sampling of one of the world's most species-rich genera almost certainly underestimates the number of evolutionary events, our phylogeny reveals prolific evolutionary lability of these exaggerated sexually selected weapons (more than 25 separate gains and losses of five different horn types). We discuss these results in the context of the natural history of these beetles and explore ways that sexual selection and ecology may have interacted to generate this extraordinary diversity of weapon morphology.

Contrasting quaternary histories in an ecologically divergent sister pair of low-dispersing intertidal fish (Xiphister) revealed by multilocus DNA analysis.

Recurrent glacial advances have shaped community histories across the planet. While biogeographic responses to glaciations likely varied with latitude, the consequences for temperate marine communities histories are less clear. By coalescent analyses of multiloci DNA sequence data (mitochondrial DNA control region, alpha-enolase intron, and alpha-tropomyosin intron) collected from a low-dispersing sister pair of rocky intertidal fishes commonly found from southeastern Alaska to California (Xiphister atropurpureus and X. mucosus), we uncover two very different responses to historical glaciations. A variety of methods that include a simulation analysis, coestimates of migration and divergence times, and estimates of minimum ages of populations sampled up and down the North American Pacific coast all strongly revealed a history of range persistence in X. atropurpureus and extreme range contraction and expansion from a southern refugium in X. mucosus. Furthermore, these conclusions are not sensitive to the independent estimates of the DNA substitution rates we obtain. While gene flow and dispersal are low in both species, the widely different histories are rather likely to have arisen from ecological differences such as diet breadth, generation time, and habitat specificity.

Diversification before the most recent glaciation in Balanus glandula.

A deep genetic cline between southern populations of the barnacle Balanus glandula (from about Monterey Bay southward) and northern populations (from northern California through Alaska) has recently been described. If this pattern is due to historical isolation and genetic drift, we expect it to have formed recently and represent a transient, nonequilibrium state. However, this cline appears to have formed well before the last glacial maximum. Our assays of sequence diversity at a region of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I, combined with coalescent estimators of the time of separation for these two regions, suggest that a late Pleistocene event more than 100 thousand years ago may be responsible for the initial separation. This suggests that either strong oceanographic mechanisms or natural selection have maintained the cline, because there has clearly been adequate time for this cline or polymorphism to resolve itself by genetic drift and migration. However, reliance on only a single mitochondrial marker for which the substitution rate has been estimated still limits the resolution of our analysis.

Differential patterns of male and female mtDNA exchange across the Atlantic Ocean in the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis.

Comparisons among loci with differing modes of inheritance can reveal unexpected aspects of population history. We employ a multilocus approach to ask whether two types of independently assorting mitochondrial DNAs (maternally and paternally inherited: F- and M-mtDNA) and a nuclear locus (ITS) yield concordant estimates of gene flow and population divergence. The blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, is distributed on both North American and European coastlines and these populations are separated by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Gene flow across the Atlantic Ocean differs among loci, with F-mtDNA and ITS showing an imprint of some genetic interchange and M-mtDNA showing no evidence for gene flow. Gene flow of F-mtDNA and ITS causes trans-Atlantic population divergence times to be greatly underestimated for these loci, although a single trans-Atlantic population divergence time (1.2 MYA) can be accommodated by considering all three loci in combination in a coalescent framework. The apparent lack of gene flow for M-mtDNA is not readily explained by different dispersal capacities of male and female mussels. A genetic barrier to M-mtDNA exchange between North American and European mussel populations is likely to explain the observed pattern, perhaps associated with the double uniparental system of mitochondrial DNA inheritance.

Distinguishing between selection and population expansion in an experimental lineage of bacteriophage T7.

Experimental evolution of short-lived organisms offers the opportunity to study the dynamics of polymorphism over time in a controlled environment. Here, we characterize DNA polymorphism data over time for four genes in bacteriophage T7. Our experiment ran for 2500 generations and populations were sampled after 500, 2000, and 2500 generations. We detect positive selection, purifying ("negative") selection, and population expansion in our experiment. We also present a statistical test that is able to distinguish demographic from selective events, processes that are hard to identify individually because both often produce an excess of rare mutations. Our "heterogeneity test" modifies common statistics measuring the frequency spectrum of polymorphism (e.g., Fu and Li's D) by looking for processes producing different patterns on nonsynonymous and synonymous mutations. Test results agree with the known conditions of the experiment, and we are therefore confident that this test offers a tool to evaluate natural populations. Our results suggest that instances of segregating deleterious mutations may be common, but as yet undetected, in nature.

The effects of nucleotide substitution model assumptions on estimates of nonparametric bootstrap support.

The use of parameter-rich substitution models in molecular phylogenetics has been criticized on the basis that these models can cause a reduction both in accuracy and in the ability to discriminate among competing topologies. We have explored the relationship between nucleotide substitution model complexity and nonparametric bootstrap support under maximum likelihood (ML) for six data sets for which the true relationships are known with a high degree of certainty. We also performed equally weighted maximum parsimony analyses in order to assess the effects of ignoring branch length information during tree selection. We observed that maximum parsimony gave the lowest mean estimate of bootstrap support for the correct set of nodes relative to the ML models for every data set except one. For several data sets, we established that the exact distribution used to model among-site rate variation was critical for a successful phylogenetic analysis. Site-specific rate models were shown to perform very poorly relative to gamma and invariable sites models for several of the data sets most likely because of the gross underestimation of branch lengths. The invariable sites model also performed poorly for several data sets where this model had a poor fit to the data, suggesting that addition of the gamma distribution can be critical. Estimates of bootstrap support for the correct nodes often increased under gamma and invariable sites models relative to equal rates models. Our observations are contrary to the prediction that such models cause reduced confidence in phylogenetic hypotheses. Our results raise several issues regarding the process of model selection, and we briefly discuss model selection uncertainty and the role of sensitivity analyses in molecular phylogenetics.

Molecular phylogenetic evidence for the independent evolutionary origin of an arthropod compound eye.

Eyes often take a central role in discussions of evolution, with debate focused on how often such complex organs might have evolved. One such debate is whether arthropod compound eyes are the product of single or multiple origins. Here we use molecular phylogeny to address this long-standing debate and find results favoring the multiple-origins hypothesis. Our analyses of DNA sequences encoding rRNA unequivocally indicate that myodocopids--the only Ostracoda (Crustacea) with compound eyes--are nested phylogenetically within several groups that lack compound eyes. With our well-supported phylogeny, standard maximum likelihood (ML) character reconstruction methods significantly reconstruct ancestral ostracods as lacking compound eyes. We also introduce a likelihood sensitivity analysis, and show that the single-origin hypothesis is not significantly favored unless we assume a highly asymmetric model of evolution (one favoring eye loss more than 30:1 over gain). These results illustrate exactly why arthropod compound eye evolution has remained controversial, because one of two seemingly very unlikely evolutionary histories must be true. Either compound eyes with detailed similarities evolved multiple times in different arthropod groups or compound eyes have been lost in a seemingly inordinate number of arthropod lineages.