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Mitochondrial protein phylogeny joins myriapods with chelicerates

Nature volume 413, pages 154–157 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The animal phylum Arthropoda is very useful for the study of body plan evolution given its abundance of morphologically diverse species and our profound understanding of Drosophila development1. However, there is a lack of consistently resolved phylogenetic relationships between the four extant arthropod subphyla, Hexapoda, Myriapoda, Chelicerata and Crustacea. Recent molecular studies2,3,4 have strongly supported a sister group relationship between Hexapoda and Crustacea, but have not resolved the phylogenetic position of Chelicerata and Myriapoda. Here we sequence the mitochondrial genome of the centipede species Lithobius forficatus and investigate its phylogenetic information content. Molecular phylogenetic analysis of conserved regions from the arthropod mitochondrial proteome yields highly resolved and congruent trees. We also find that a sister group relationship between Myriapoda and Chelicerata is strongly supported. We propose a model to explain the apparently parallel evolution of similar head morphologies in insects and myriapods.

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Figure 1: Phylogenetic distribution of tRNACys arrangements in arthropod mitochondrial genomes.
Figure 2: Visualization of phylogenetic information content by maximum likelihood mapping.
Figure 3: Phylogram of best maximum-likelihood tree with 18P2560 alignment (ln(likelihood) = -42925.32 ).

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Acknowledgements

We thank N. Muqim for technical assistance and A. Minelli and T. Burmester for comments on the manuscript. Most computation was performed on the Biological Software Server of the Institute Pasteur Paris. This study was in part supported by a DFG grant to D.T. and a Brain Korea 21 Project grant to W.K. U.W.H. was supported by fellowships from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, and the Brain Korea 21 Project (Medical Sciences, Yonsei University).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Teachers College, Kyungpook National University, Taegu, 702-701, Korea

    Ui Wook Hwang

  2. School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-742, Korea

    Ui Wook Hwang, Chan Jong Park & Won Kim

  3. Department of Biological Sciences, Wayne State University, 5047 Gullen Mall, Detroit, 48202, Michigan, USA

    Markus Friedrich

  4. Abteilung für Evolutionsgenetik, Institut für Genetik, Universität zu Köln, Weyertal 121, Köln, 50931, Germany

    Diethard Tautz

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  1. Ui Wook Hwang
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ui Wook Hwang or Markus Friedrich.

Supplementary information

Supplement Figure 1

(GIF 12.6 KB)

Consistent support for a chelicerate/myriapod sister clade when nematode taxa are included. Single protein alignments (23PND1.PHYLIP, 23PND2_PHYLIP, 23PND3.PHYLIP, 23PND4.PHYLIP, 23PND4l.PHYLIP, 23PND5.PHYLIP, 23PND6.PHYLIP, 23PCOI-1.PHYLIP, 23PCOII-1.PHYLIP, 23PCOIII-1.PHYLIP, 23PCytB.PHYLIP and 23Patpase6-1.PHYLIP) were generated for same set of species included in the original analysis plus the four nematode species and deposited with supplementary materials. Mitochondrial protein quartet puzzling trees shown as unrooted phylograms of were estimated with a 2055 site long alignment (23P2055, EBI WWW server accession number ALIGN_000113) produced with the Gblocks program at default settings as described in Material and Methods. Bars represent 0.1 substitutions per site. a, Taxon choice as with 18P2560 and 18P1528. Myriapod/chelicerate clade supported with BP = 95. b, Taxon choice same as in a with four nematode taxa added (Caenorhabditis, Ascaris, Onchocerca, Trichinella) and the fast evolving chelicerate Ixodes removed. All four nematode taxa form extremely long branches consistent with accelerated substitution rates indicated in distance matrix (Supplement Table 1). Myriapod/chelicerate clade supported with BP = 98. c, Taxon choice same as in b with fast evolving chelicerate taxa added (Rhipicephalus, Ixodes). The latter are drawn away from the chelicerate Limulus most likely due to long branch attraction. Myriapod (Lithobius) /chelicerate (Limulus) clade supported with BP = 88.

Single protein alignments (ZIP 37.3 KB)

Supplement Table 1 Maximum likelihood distance matrix for alignment 23P2055 used to estimate trees in Supplement Figure 1. Nematode taxa (Caenorhabditis, Ascaris, Onchocerca, Trichinella) exhibit at least three times higher sequence divergence than most other taxa included.
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Hwang, U., Friedrich, M., Tautz, D. et al. Mitochondrial protein phylogeny joins myriapods with chelicerates. Nature 413, 154–157 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35093090

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