ABSTRACT
Tong et al. comment on the accuracy of the dating analysis presented in our work on the phylogeny of insects and provide a reanalysis of our data. They replace log-normal priors with uniform priors and add a "roachoid" fossil as a calibration point. Although the reanalysis provides an interesting alternative viewpoint, we maintain that our choices were appropriate.
Subject(s)
Insect Proteins/classification , Insecta/classification , Phylogeny , AnimalsABSTRACT
In this study 4310 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were used to identify potentially useful transcripts for future studies in the gooseneck barnacle Pollicipes pollicipes (Gmelin, 1789). 119 ESTs were obtained in this work and 4191 were taken from Meusemann et al. (2010). The gooseneck barnacle is a sessile pedunculate cirripede of great economic importance that occurs in dense aggregations, and is harvested for human consumption. The assembly of these ESTs yielded 1805 unigenes (461 contigs and 1344 singlets). The identification of cement proteins in our data is particularly interesting for cirripedes. Only a small part of the assembled unigenes could be functionally annotated. However, our results greatly improve our understanding of the biological features of P. pollicipes. In addition to this, a large number of potentially interesting genes were identified in order to serve as the base for future evolutionary studies in P. pollicipes.