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Life-history evolution and mitogenomic phylogeny of caecilian amphibians.
Journal article

Life-history evolution and mitogenomic phylogeny of caecilian amphibians.

  • San Mauro D Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom. Electronic address: dsanmauro@ub.edu.
  • Gower DJ Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
  • Müller H Institut für Spezielle Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie mit Phyletischem Museum, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Erbertstrasse 1, 07743 Jena, Germany.
  • Loader SP University of Basel, Biogeography Research Group, Department of Environmental Sciences, Basel 4056, Switzerland.
  • Zardoya R Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales - CSIC, José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain.
  • Nussbaum RA Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, 1109 Geddes Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079, United States.
  • Wilkinson M Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
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  • 2014-02-01
Published in:
  • Molecular phylogenetics and evolution. - 2014
Gymnophiona
Larval re-evolution
Maternal dermatophagy
Mitochondrial genome
Reproduction
Viviparity
Amphibians
Animals
Biological Evolution
Evolution, Molecular
Feeding Behavior
Female
Genome, Mitochondrial
Larva
Oviducts
Phylogeny
Seychelles
Skin
Viviparity, Nonmammalian
English We analyze mitochondrial genomes to reconstruct a robust phylogenetic framework for caecilian amphibians and use this to investigate life-history evolution within the group. Our study comprises 45 caecilian mitochondrial genomes (19 of them newly reported), representing all families and 27 of 32 currently recognized genera, including some for which molecular data had never been reported. Support for all relationships in the inferred phylogenetic tree is high to maximal, and topology tests reject all investigated alternatives, indicating an exceptionally robust molecular phylogenetic framework of caecilian evolution consistent with current morphology-based supraspecific classification. We used the mitogenomic phylogenetic framework to infer ancestral character states and to assess correlation among three life-history traits (free-living larvae, viviparity, specialized pre-adult or vernal teeth), each of which occurs only in some caecilian species. Our results provide evidence that an ancestor of the Seychelles caecilians abandoned direct development and re-evolved a free-living larval stage. This study yields insights into the concurrent evolution of direct development and of vernal teeth in an ancestor of Teresomata that likely gave rise to skin-feeding (maternal dermatophagy) behavior and subsequently enabled evolution of viviparity, with skin feeding possibly a homologous precursor of oviduct feeding in viviparous caecilians.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/72876
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