Global phylogenomic assessment of Leptoseris and Agaricia reveals substantial undescribed diversity at mesophotic depths.
BMC Biol
; 21(1): 147, 2023 06 26.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37365558
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Mesophotic coral communities are increasingly gaining attention for the unique biological diversity they host, exemplified by the numerous mesophotic fish species that continue to be discovered. In contrast, many of the photosynthetic scleractinian corals observed at mesophotic depths are assumed to be depth-generalists, with very few species characterised as mesophotic-specialists. This presumed lack of a specialised community remains largely untested, as phylogenetic studies on corals have rarely included mesophotic samples and have long suffered from resolution issues associated with traditional sequence markers.RESULTS:
Here, we used reduced-representation genome sequencing to conduct a phylogenomic assessment of the two dominant mesophotic genera of plating corals in the Indo-Pacific and Western Atlantic, respectively, Leptoseris and Agaricia. While these genome-wide phylogenies broadly corroborated the morphological taxonomy, they also exposed deep divergences within the two genera and undescribed diversity across the current taxonomic species. Five of the eight focal species consisted of at least two sympatric and genetically distinct lineages, which were consistently detected across different methods.CONCLUSIONS:
The repeated observation of genetically divergent lineages associated with mesophotic depths highlights that there may be many more mesophotic-specialist coral species than currently acknowledged and that an urgent assessment of this largely unstudied biological diversity is warranted.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Temas:
ECOS
/
Aspectos_gerais
Bases de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Antozoários
/
Recifes de Corais
Limite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
BMC Biol
Assunto da revista:
BIOLOGIA
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos