The Tree of Life and a New Classification of Bony Fishes
By R. Betancur-R, R. Broughton, Edward O. Wiley, K. Carpenter, J. A. López, Chenhong Li, Nancy I. Holcroft, D. Arcila, Millicent Sanciangco, James C Cureton II and 14 more. PLOS Currents, 2013
851 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The tree of life of fishes is in a state of flux because we still lack a comprehensive phylogeny that includes all major groups. The situation is most critical for a large clade of spiny-finned fishes, traditionally referred to as percomorphs, whose uncertain relationships have plagued ichthyologists for over a century. Most of what we know about the higher-level relationships among fish lineages has been based on morphology, but rapid influx of molecular studies is changing many established systematic concepts. We report a comprehensive molecular phylogeny for bony fishes that includes representatives of all major lineages. DNA sequence data for 21 molecular markers (one mitochondrial and 20 nuclear genes) were collected for 1410 bony fish taxa, plus four tetrapod species and two chondrichthyan outgroups (total 1416 terminals). Bony fish diversity is represented by 1093 genera, 369 families, and all traditionally recognized orders. The maximum likelihood tree provides unprecedented resolution and high bootstrap support for most backbone nodes, defining for the first time a global phylogeny of fishes. The general structure of the tree is in agreement with expectations from previous morphological and molecular studies, but significant new clades arise. Most interestingly, the high degree of uncertainty among percomorphs is now resolved into nine well-supported supraordinal groups. The order Perciformes, considered by many a polyphyletic taxonomic waste basket, is defined for the first time as a monophyletic group in the global phylogeny. A new classification that reflects our phylogenetic hypothesis is proposed to facilitate communication about the newly found structure of the tree of life of fishes. Finally, the molecular phylogeny is calibrated using 60 fossil constraints to produce a comprehensive time tree. The new time-calibrated phylogeny will provide the basis for and stimulate new comparative studies to better understand the evolution of the amazing diversity of fishes.
Subfields: Nature and Landscape Conservation, Paleontology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0bed231a222cfa4034d20f394b2ec76880f66c27
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Citations in the corpus
- New insights on early evolution of spiny-rayed fishes (Teleostei: Acanthomorpha) (2014, methodology): “…of sister group relationships have included Ateleopodiformes (jellynose) in a mito-genomic study (Poulsen et al., 2013), Aulopiformes (lizardfishes and the allies) in Betancur-R et al. (2013a) (Figure 3B) and Near et al. (2012b), or the former two lineages together (this study; Figure 3A).”
- Phylogenetic classification of bony fishes (2017, methodology): “Sinipercidae is recognized following C Li, G Orti and J Zhao [317] (formerly a synonym of Percichthyidae).”
- Contemporary evolution, allelic recycling, and adaptive radiation of the threespine stickleback (2013, background): “Its close relatives, including most other species of the Gasterosteidae (Kawahara et al., 2009), Gasterosteales, Cottoidei, and successively larger monophyletic groups to which it belongs (Betancur-R et al., 2013) include only or mostly marine species.”
- Morphology, Taxonomy, and Phylogeny of Triassic Pholidophorid Fishes (Actinopterygii, Teleostei) (2013, background): “…that includes over half of all living vertebrate species, is underscored by continued use of the type species of the genus, †Pholidophorus latiusculus, as a temporal calibration point for molecular trees of Teleostei (e.g., Alfaro et al., 2009; Betancur-R. et al., 2013; Broughton et al., 2013).”