Independent Evolution of the Specialized Pharyngeal Jaw Apparatus in Cichlid and Labrid Fishes Kohji Mabuchi*1, Masaki Miya2, Yoichiro Azuma1 and Mutsumi Nishida1
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BMC Evolutionary Biology BioMed Central Research article Open Access Independent evolution of the specialized pharyngeal jaw apparatus in cichlid and labrid fishes Kohji Mabuchi*1, Masaki Miya2, Yoichiro Azuma1 and Mutsumi Nishida1 Address: 1Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 1-15-1 Minamidai, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-8639, Japan and 2Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum & Institute, Chiba, 955-2 Aoba-cho, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8682, Japan Email: Kohji Mabuchi* - [email protected]; Masaki Miya - [email protected]; Yoichiro Azuma - [email protected]; Mutsumi Nishida - [email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 30 January 2007 Received: 1 August 2006 Accepted: 30 January 2007 BMC Evolutionary Biology 2007, 7:10 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-7-10 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/10 © 2007 Mabuchi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Fishes in the families Cichlidae and Labridae provide good probable examples of vertebrate adaptive radiations. Their spectacular trophic radiations have been widely assumed to be due to structural key innovation in pharyngeal jaw apparatus (PJA), but this idea has never been tested based on a reliable phylogeny. For the first step of evaluating the hypothesis, we investigated the phylogenetic positions of the components of the suborder Labroidei (including Pomacentridae and Embiotocidae in addition to Cichlidae and Labridae) within the Percomorpha, the most diversified (> 15,000 spp) crown clade of teleosts. We examined those based on 78 whole mitochondrial genome sequences (including 12 newly determined sequences) through partitioned Bayesian analyses with concatenated sequences (13,933 bp). Results: The resultant phylogenies indicated that the Labridae and the remaining three labroid families have diverged basally within the Percomorpha, and monophyly of the suborder was confidently rejected by statistical tests using Bayes factors. Conclusion: The resultant phylogenies indicated that the specified PJA evolved independently at least twice, once in Labridae and once in the common ancestor of the remaining three labroid families (including the Cichlidae). Because the independent evolution of pharyngeal jaws appears to have been followed by trophic radiations, we consider that our result supports, from the aspect of historical repeatability, the idea that the evolution of the specialized PJA provided these lineages with the morphological potential for their spectacular trophic radiations. The present result will provide a new framework for the study of functional morphology and genetic basis of their PJA. Background thousand of species exhibiting various feeding modes Fishes of the families Cichlidae and Labridae [1] (includ- (Fig. 1). In terms of species richness, cichlids exceed ing scarids and odacids as subgroups) represent good labrids (1478 spp. vs 576 spp.; calculated from the data probable examples of vertebrate adaptive radiations [2,3]. from FishBase [4], whereas labrid morphological diversity Although the two families inhabit different aquatic envi- is comparable to that of the cichlids in terms of feeding ronments (freshwater cichlids vs marine labrids), both modes, as represented by the wide variety of their skull families have radiated into several hundreds to over a forms (Fig. 1) [5]. Indeed, biomechanical studies of lower Page 1 of 12 (page number not for citation purposes) BMC Evolutionary Biology 2007, 7:10 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/10 jaw shapes [6,7] quantitatively demonstrated that the esis independent of pharyngeal characters as below. The labrid functional diversity in lower jaw was well compara- widely-accepted taxonomic hypothesis (monophyletic ble to that of all ray-finned fishes. Labroidei) assumed that the evolution of the specialized PJA occurred only once during the percomorph evolution, The dramatic radiation of the cichlid and labrid fishes is a situation that has prevented the famous evolutionary widely believed to result from the "key innovation" of a example from being examined from the aspect of histori- unique pharyngeal jaw apparatus (PJA). Generalized per- cal repeatability. The traditional taxonomic hypothesis comorph fishes, from which the cichlids and labrids were based on the sharing of the specialized PJA, however, derived, have upper and lower "pharyngeal jaws" within needs reconsideration. Phylogeny independent of the PJA the throat, which function chiefly to transport food into may come to demonstrate multiple origins of the special- the esophagus, whereas the "oral jaws" have a task of both ized PJA followed by trophic radiations, which support collecting and manipulating (crushing and processing) the key innovation hypothesis at least from the aspect of food. In the cichlid and labrid fishes, the pharyngeal jaws the historical repeatability. The hypothesis, however, and attached muscles (constituting PJA) was modified must be tested statistically by comparing the diversity of into a derived condition with three major features: 1) the the clades with the trait to that of the sister taxa without left and right lower jaw elements are fused into a single that trait [15,16] when the true sister taxa are found in a structure, 2) the lower jaw is suspended in a muscular future study. sling that runs from the neurocranium to the posterior muscular arms of the lower jaw, and 3) the upper jaw ele- For the first step of evaluating the key innovation hypoth- ments have a diarthrotic articulation with the underside esis on the specialized PJA, we examined labroid mono- of the neurocranium (Fig. 2) [8]. The unique condition of phyly based on 78 whole mitochondrial genome the PJA is assumed to allow efficient manipulation (par- sequences from a variety of the Perciformes and related ticularly strong bite) of food [8-10]. Liem [9] has sug- other ordinal taxa (collectively called "Percomorpha"). gested that the evolution of the uniquely modified PJA in Usefulness of whole mitochondrial genome sequences cichlids and labrids freed the oral jaws from the task of (ca. 16,000 bp) for resolving higher-level phylogenetic food manipulation, allowing it to diversify into various relationships of teleost has been demonstrated in several food-collecting modes (see Fig. 1). studies [e.g. [17-19]]. Although non-monophyly of the labroid families have been suggested in previous studies Although this scenario is one of the most well-known [14,20,21], limited sequence data used in these studies examples of an evolutionary key innovation (cited in (2,222 bp at longest) have precluded them from drawing Futuyma's [11] "Evolutionary Biology", the most widely- definite conclusions, and no statistical test has been con- used textbook in the field), it has never been evaluated ducted for corroborating that hypothesis. Our analysis adequately. Unfortunately, the key innovation hypothesis used the whole mitochondrial genome sequences on the specialized PJA has been proposed being coupled (>13,000 bp per species), and confirmed the independent with a taxonomic hypothesis that has widely been origins of the two diversified families by statistical tests accepted ever since: the family Labridae and Cichlidae using Bayes factors. have been classified into the suborder Labroidei, together with Pomacentridae and Embiotocidae, based on the Results sharing of the specialized PJA [10,12]. According to The final DNA alignment contains 13,933 nucleotide sites Stiassny & Jensen [12], the specialized PJA has seven mor- for the 78 taxa listed in Table 1. Of the sites, 9,037 were phological features including the above three major ones. variable and 7,832 informative under the parsimony cri- None of them is, however, unique to labroid fishes, terion. Partitioned Bayesian analyses based on three dif- although there is no other group known to have them all ferently-weighted datasets, #1, #2 (3rd codons RY-coded), [13]. Moreover, there is no independent, corroborative and #3 (3rd codons excluded), recovered nearly identical evidence for a monophyletic Labroidei outside of the spe- topologies. Figure 3 shows a 50% majority rule consensus cialized PJA [12,13]. This situation has led some evolu- tree of the 4,700 pooled trees from two independent Baye- tionary biologists to doubt not only the taxonomic sian analyses for dataset #2. It was fully bifurcated with hypothesis but also the key innovation hypothesis (e.g. the exception of an unresolved trichotomy denoted by an [14]). The doubt about the latter hypothesis is a little rash, arrow, and most internal branches were supported by however, because appropriateness of the evolutionary 100% posterior probabilities (PPs). Topological differ- hypothesis essentially does not depend on that of the ences among results from the three datasets were shown appended taxonomic hypothesis. only in the trichotomy and five internal branches denoted by arrowheads in Fig. 3. A discussion of the specialized PJA as a key innovation, however, hinges, first of all, upon a phylogenetic hypoth- Page 2 of 12 (page number not for citation purposes) BMC Evolutionary Biology 2007, 7:10 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/10 (a) (e) (i) (m) (b) (f) (j) (n) (c) (g) (k) (o) (d) (h) (l) (p) Cichlidae