Corallimorpharians are not "naked corals": insights into relationships between Scleractinia and Corallimorpharia from phylogenomic analyses.

ABSTRACT: Calcification is one of the most distinctive traits of scleractinian corals. Their hard skeletons form the substratum of reef ecosystems and confer on corals their remarkable diversity of shapes. Corallimorpharians are non-calcifying, close relatives of scleractinian corals, and the evolutionary relationship between these two groups is key to understanding the evolution of calcification in the coral lineage. One pivotal question is whether scleractinians are a monophyletic group, paraphyly being an alternative possibility if corallimorpharians are corals that have lost their ability to calcify, as is implied by the "naked-coral" hypothesis. Despite major efforts, relationships between scleractinians and corallimorpharians remain equivocal and controversial. Although the complete mitochondr

SUBMITTER: Lin MF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5068439 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature