title: Support for the monophyletic origin of Gnathifera from phylogenomics.
abstract: The monophyletic origin of Spiralia within the metazoan tree of life is supported by many large-scale phylogenomic data. While there is now substantial molecular evidence for Lophotrochozoa being a monophyletic taxon within Spiralia, the phylogenetic affiliations of many other spiralian phyla remain unclear. Here we focus on the question of a monophyletic taxon Gnathifera, which was originally characterized by jaw morphology as comprising the taxa Rotifera, Acanthocephala and Gnathostomulida. Based on a large-scale molecular sequence dataset of 11,146 amino acid residues, we reconstructed phylogenetic trees of spiralian phyla using maximum-likelihood and Bayesian approaches. We obtain the first phylogenomic evidence for the clade Gnathifera, linking Syndermata (Rotifera+Acanthocephala) with Gnathostomulida. Furthermore, our data support recent findings concerning the paraphyly of Eurotatoria.
authors: Institute of Molecular Genetics, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, J.J. Becherweg 30a, D-55099 Mainz, Germany.
authors: Alexander
authors: A
authors: Witek
authors: Holger
authors: H
authors: Herlyn
authors: Ingo
authors: I
authors: Ebersberger
authors: David B
authors: DB
authors: Mark Welch
authors: Thomas
authors: T
authors: Hankeln
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D023281:Genomics; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D012269:Ribosomal Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D012403:Rotifera / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein
chemical_list: D012269:Ribosomal Proteins