Independent evolution of the specialized pharyngeal jaw apparatus in cichlid and labrid fishes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Fishes in the families Cichlidae and Labridae provide good probable examples of vertebrate adaptive radiations. Their spectacular trophic radiations have been widely assumed to be due to structural key innovation in pharyngeal jaw apparatus (PJA), but this idea has never been tested based on a reliable phylogeny. For the first step of evaluating the hypothesis, we investigated the phylogenetic positions of the components of the suborder Labroidei (including Pomacentridae and Embiotocidae in addition to Cichlidae and Labridae) within the Percomorpha, the most diversified (> 15,000 spp) crown clade of teleosts. We examined those based on 78 whole mitochondrial genome sequences (including 12 newly determined sequences) through partitioned Bayesian analyses with concatenated

SUBMITTER: Mabuchi K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1797158 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature