Nearly complete rRNA genes from 371 Animalia: updated structure-based alignment and detailed phylogenetic analysis.

This study presents a manually constructed alignment of nearly complete rRNA genes from most animal clades (371 taxa from ~33 of the ~36 metazoan phyla), expanded from the 197 sequences in a previous study. This thorough, taxon-rich alignment, available at http://www.wsu.edu/~jmallatt/research/rRNAalignment.html and in the Dryad Repository (doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.1v62kr3q), is based rigidly on the secondary structure of the SSU and LSU rRNA molecules, and is annotated in detail, including labeling of the erroneous sequences (contaminants). The alignment can be used for future studies of the molecular evolution of rRNA. Here, we use it to explore if the larger number of sequences produces an improved phylogenetic tree of animal relationships. Disappointingly, the resolution did not improve, neither when the standard maximum-likelihood method was used, nor with more sophisticated methods that partitioned the rRNA into paired and unpaired sites (stem, loop, bulge, junction), or accounted for the evolution of the paired sites. For example, no doublet model of paired-site substitutions (16-state, 16A and 16B, 7A-F, or 6A-C models) corrected the placement of any rogue taxa or increased resolution. The following findings are from the simplest, standard, ML analysis. The 371-taxon tree only imperfectly supported the bilaterian clades of Lophotrochozoa and Ecdysozoa, and this problem remained after 17 taxa with unstably positioned sequences were omitted from the analysis. The problem seems to stem from base-compositional heterogeneity across taxa and from an overrepresentation of highly divergent sequences among the newly added taxa (e.g., sequences from Cephalopoda, Rotifera, Acoela, and Myxozoa). The rogue taxa continue to concentrate in two locations in the rRNA tree: near the base of Arthropoda and of Bilateria. The approximately uncertain (AU) test refuted the monophyly of Mollusca and of Chordata, probably due to long-branch attraction of the highly divergent cephalopod and urochordate sequences out of those clades. Unlikely to be correct, these refutations show for the first time that rRNA phylogeny can support some 'wrong' clades. Along with its weaknesses, the rRNA tree has strengths: It recovers many clades that are supported by independent evidence (e.g., Metazoa, Bilateria, Hexapoda, Nonoculata, Ambulacraria, Syndermata, and Thecostraca with Malacostraca) and shows good resolution within certain groups (e.g., in Platyhelminthes, Insecta, Cnidaria). As another strength, the newly added rRNA sequences yielded the first rRNA-based support for Carnivora and Cetartiodactyla (dolphin+llama) in Mammalia, for basic subdivisions of Bryozoa ('Gymnolaemata+Stenolaemata' versus Phylactolaemata), and for Oligostraca (ostracods+branchiurans+pentastomids+mystacocarids). Future improvement could come from better sequence-evolution models that account for base-compositional heterogeneity, and from combining rRNA with protein-coding genes in phylogenetic reconstruction.

Nearly complete rRNA genes assembled from across the metazoan animals: effects of more taxa, a structure-based alignment, and paired-sites evolutionary models on phylogeny reconstruction.

This study (1) uses nearly complete rRNA-gene sequences from across Metazoa (197 taxa) to reconstruct animal phylogeny; (2) presents a highly annotated, manual alignment of these sequences with special reference to rRNA features including paired sites (http://purl.oclc.org/NET/rRNA/Metazoan_alignment) and (3) tests, after eliminating as few disruptive, rogue sequences as possible, if a likelihood framework can recover the main metazoan clades. We found that systematic elimination of approximately 6% of the sequences, including the divergent or unstably placed sequences of cephalopods, arrowworm, symphylan and pauropod myriapods, and of myzostomid and nemertodermatid worms, led to a tree that supported Ecdysozoa, Lophotrochozoa, Protostomia, and Bilateria. Deuterostomia, however, was never recovered, because the rRNA of urochordates goes (nonsignificantly) near the base of the Bilateria. Counterintuitively, when we modeled the evolution of the paired sites, phylogenetic resolution was not increased over traditional tree-building models that assume all sites in rRNA evolve independently. The rRNA genes of non-bilaterians contain a higher % AT than do those of most bilaterians. The rRNA genes of Acoela and Myzostomida were found to be secondarily shortened, AT-enriched, and highly modified, throwing some doubt on the location of these worms at the base of Bilateria in the rRNA tree--especially myzostomids, which other evidence suggests are annelids instead. Other findings are marsupial-with-placental mammals, arrowworms in Ecdysozoa (well supported here but contradicted by morphology), and Placozoa as sister to Cnidaria. Finally, despite the difficulties, the rRNA-gene trees are in strong concordance with trees derived from multiple protein-coding genes in supporting the new animal phylogeny.