Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access published June 10, 2013 Integrative and Comparative Biology Integrative and Comparative Biology, pp. 1–19 doi:10.1093/icb/ict065 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology SYMPOSIUM Molecular Phylogenies Support Homoplasy of Multiple Morphological Characters Used in the Taxonomy of Heteroscleromorpha (Porifera: Demospongiae) Christine C. Morrow,1,* Niamh E. Redmond,† Bernard E. Picton,‡ Robert W. Thacker,§ Allen G. Collins,† Christine A. Maggs,* Julia D. Sigwart* and A. Louise Allcockô *School of Biological Sciences, MBC, 97 Lisburn Road, Queen’s University, Belfast BT9 7BL, UK; †National Systematics Laboratory, National Museum of Natural History, MRC-153, Smithsonian Institution, P.O. Box 37012, Washington, DC ‡ 20013-7012, USA; National Museums Northern Ireland, 153 Bangor Road, Holywood BT18 0EU, Northern Ireland, UK; Downloaded from §Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA; ôSchool of Natural Science and Ryan Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland From the symposium ‘‘Assembling the Poriferan Tree of Life’’ presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, January 3–7, 2013 at San Francisco, California. http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/ 1E-mail:
[email protected] Synopsis Sponge classification has long been based mainly on morphocladistic analyses but is now being greatly chal- lenged by more than 12 years of accumulated analyses of molecular data analyses. The current study used phylogenetic hypotheses based on sequence data from 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA, and the CO1 barcoding fragment, combined with morphology to justify the resurrection of the order Axinellida Le´vi, 1953. Axinellida occupies a key position in different at smithsonia3 on June 10, 2013 morphologically derived topologies.