bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/247304; this version posted March 26, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 2 How the Central American Seaway and 3 an ancient northern passage affected 4 flatfish diversification 5 6 Lisa Byrne1, François Chapleau1, and Stéphane Aris-Brosou*,1,2 7 8 1Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, CANADA 9 2Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, CANADA 10 11 *Corresponding author: E-mail:
[email protected] 12 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/247304; this version posted March 26, 2018. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 13 Abstract 14 While the natural history of flatfish has been debated for decades, the mode of 15 diversification of this biologically and economically important group has never been 16 elucidated. To address this question, we assembled the largest molecular data set to date, 17 covering > 300 species (out of ca. 800 extant), from 13 of the 14 known families over 18 nine genes, and employed relaxed molecular clocks to uncover their patterns of 19 diversification. As the fossil record of flatfish is contentious, we used sister species 20 distributed on both sides of the American continent to calibrate clock models based on 21 the closure of the Central American Seaway (CAS), and on their current species range.