Meeting Abstract

S8.2  Wednesday, Jan. 6  Molecular Phylogenetic Insights into Octocoral Evolution MCFADDEN, CS*; BRISSON, V; FRANCE, SC; Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA; University of California, Berkeley; University of Louisiana, Lafayette mcfadden@hmc.edu

The Anthozoan sub-class Octocorallia comprises approximately 3000 described species of soft corals, sea fans, and sea pens. Although the monophyly of Octocorallia is well supported by both molecular and morphological evidence, ordinal and sub-ordinal relationships within the clade remain very uncertain. Previous single-locus molecular phylogenetic analyses have failed to support any of the traditional morphology-based classification schemes, yet have offered no well-supported alternative hypotheses of octocoral diversification. As part of the Cnidarian Tree of Life project, we sequenced complete large (28S) and small (18S) subunit nuclear ribosomal genes, plus partial mitochondrial large subunit ribosomal (16S), cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and mut-S homolog (msh1) genes for approximately 110 taxa representing 38 of 47 octocoral families. Here we present the results of the combined phylogenetic analysis of ~8 kB of sequence data, and discuss implications for the evolution of morphological diversity (in particular, skeletal morphology and colony architecture) within Octocorallia. In addition, we highlight some taxonomic advances we have made at the inter- and intrageneric levels by using molecular phylogenetic analyses to discover new, phylogenetically informative morphological characters for taxonomy.