Are Hexacorallia Monophyletic

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Are Hexacorallia Monophyletic?

• Toni A. Oplt
• University of Houston
• Bioinformatics for Biologists
• BCHS 4324.31297

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Coral Reefs

• Modern coral reefs date back to the Middle
  Triassic
• 240 million years ago
• Class - Anthozoa
• Subclass - Hexacorallia
• Subclass - Octocorallia

Anemonia majano http//www.uniprot.org/taxonomy/10
5399
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Phylogenetic Characterization of Corals

• Anatomical features
• Number of tentacles
• Mesenteries
• Exoskeleton
• Sequence data
• Mitochondrial sequences
• Nuclear gene sequences

Ricordea florida http//www.crazyricksonline.com/s
hop/index.php?cPath29
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Characterizing Anthozoa

• Anatomical features
• Number of tentacles
• Mesenteries

Schematic cross-section through Hexacorallia at
the level of the actinopharynx, showing
arrangement of mesenteries. Daly et al., 2003
Structure of a typical coral polyp. http//coris.n
oaa.gov/about/what_are/
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Characterizing Hexacorallia

• Sequencing n 17

• Sequencing ngt40

• 1. Complete mitochondria genome

• 1. and 2. Mitochondrial and nuclear genes

Medina et al., 2006
Fukami et al., 2008
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Characterizing Hexacorallia
As the quantity of sequence data increases, the
phylogeny changes.
?
Brugler et al., 2006
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Are Hexacorallia Monophyletic?

• Assignment
• Obtain mitochondrial sequence data from five
  species within Hexacorallia.
• Obtain mitochondrial sequence data from species
  within Octocorallia as an outgroup.
• Take the sequence data and create neighbor
  joining and maximum parsimony phylogenetic trees
  to determine if Hexacorallia is monophyletic.
• Obstacles
• Because using more species within each order in
  phylogentic analysis has proven to substantially
  change the outcome, it may be necessary to
  include a larger number of species to ensure
  proper analysis.
• One foreseen obstacle is the limited amount of
  published Anthozoa sequence data available which
  would restrict comprehensive analysis.

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References

• Brugler, M.R., and France, S.C. (2007). The
  complete mitochondrial genome of the black coral
  Chrysopathes formosa (CnidariaAnthozoaAntipathar
  ia) supports classification of antipatharians
  within the subclass Hexacorallia. Molecular
  Phylogenetics Evolution 42, 776788.
• Daly, M., Fautin, D.G., and Cappola, V.A. (2003).
  Systematics of the Hexacorallia (Cnidaria
  Anthozoa). Zoological Journal of the Linnean
  Society 139, 419437.
• Fukami, H., Chen, C., Budd, A., Collins, A.,
  Wallace, C., Chuang, Y., Chen, C., Dai, C., Iwao,
  K., Sheppard, C., et al. (2008). Mitochondrial
  and nuclear genes suggest that stony corals are
  monophyletic but most families of stony corals
  are not (Order Scleractinia, Class Anthozoa,
  Phylum Cnidaria). PLoS One 3, e3222.
• Medina, M., Collins, A.G., Takaoka, T.L., Kuehl,
  J.V., and Boore, J.L. (2006). Naked Corals
  Skeleton Loss in Scleractinia. Proceedings of the
  National Academy of Sciences of the United States
  of America 103, 9096-9100.