Meeting Abstract
Acanthogorgiidae (Gray, 1859) are a family of sea fans found throughout the oceans and at a wide range of depths. The family comprises about 130 species, currently divided among 5 genera. No phylogenetic analysis of Acanthogorgiidae has previously been conducted, although inclusion of some species in broader analyses of the Octocorallia suggest the family is not monophyletic. Here we provide a first explicit phylogenetic examination of the family to test for monophyly and to better understand their evolution and taxonomy. Sequences from the mitochondrial MutS gene were collected from 4 of the 5 acanthogorgiid genera and added to a dataset of 86 GenBank sequences from acanthogorgiids and several GenBank sequences representing other families of holaxonian octocorals and analyzed using both Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference methods. The results of these analyses will be discussed in detail.
