From offshore to onshore: multiple origins of shallow-water corals from deep-sea ancestors.
Abstract
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.
Type
Journal articleSubject
AnimalsAnthozoa
Base Sequence
Biological Evolution
DNA Primers
Marine Biology
Phylogeny
Polymerase Chain Reaction
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4496Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1371/journal.pone.0002429Publication Info
Lindner, Alberto; Cairns, Stephen D; & Cunningham, Clifford W (2008). From offshore to onshore: multiple origins of shallow-water corals from deep-sea ancestors.
PLoS One, 3(6). pp. e2429. 10.1371/journal.pone.0002429. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/4496.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Clifford W. Cunningham
Professor of Biology

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