A New Molecular Phylogeny of Salps (Tunicata: Thalicea: Salpida) and the Evolutionary History of Their Colonial Architecture.

ABSTRACT: Salps are marine pelagic tunicates with a complex life cycle, including a solitary and colonial stage composed of asexually budded individuals. These colonies develop into species-specific architectures with distinct zooid orientations, including transversal, oblique, linear, helical, and bipinnate chains, as well as whorls and clusters. The evolutionary history of salp colony architecture has remained obscured due to the lack of an ontology to characterize architectures, as well as a lack of phylogenetic taxon sampling and resolution of critical nodes. We (1) collected and sequenced eight species of salps that had never been sequenced before, (2) inferred the phylogenetic relationships among salps, and (3) reconstructed the evolutionary history of salp colony architecture. We collected sa

SUBMITTER: Damian-Serrano A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10576244 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature