Meeting Abstract

144.5  Monday, Jan. 7  The Effect of Phylogeny on Morphological Characteristics of the Skeleton in Pleuronectiformes BLACK, C.R.*; BERENDZEN, P.B.; Univ. of Northern Iowa; Univ. of Northern Iowa corinthi@uni.edu

Pleuronectiformes, commonly known as flatfishes, are a highly specialized order of fishes displaying obvious asymmetrical morphology. When flatfish hatch, they are symmetrical. As development continues, one eye migrates dorsally to the other side of the head. This causes morphological changes to occur simultaneously, resulting in an asymmetric fish. These changes include asymmetry of paired fins, dentition, and pigmentation of the body. The skeletal structure undergoes morphological changes as development continues. Of these skeletal structures, the frontal complex of the skull illustrates the greatest transformation. Although all Pleuronectiformes undergo similar developmental changes, there are significant differences in morphology of these characters across the phylogeny. This study focuses on examining the morphological diversity of several skeletal characteristics including the shape of the frontal complex, fin insertion points, and the spinal flexure using geometric morphometrics. Radiographic images of at least one representative of every genus available, in the order of Pleuronectiformes, were digitized by placing 32 landmarks across the skeleton. Landmarks were standardized, a principal component analysis was performed, and the ancestral phylomorphospace was reconstructed using the most recently published molecular phylogeny. Preliminary results will be presented.