Molecular data and biogeography: resolution of a controversy over evolutionary history of a pan-tropical group of invertebrates

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Abstract

Phylogenetic analyses of sequences of 16S rDNA suggest that the current hypothesis of the evolution of the pan-tropical fiddler crab genus Uca (Decapoda, Brachyura, Ocypodidae) is false. This hypothesis rests of the assumption that the increase of complexity of reproductive behavior, together with a tendency of a habitat shift towards the higher intertidal, arose only once in the history of the fiddler crabs. The origin of fiddler crabs was placed in the IndoPacific, which is widely thought to be a center of origin for several marine groups. There, relatively lower intertidal crabs were thought to give rise to a radiation in the Americas in which higher intertidal forms with more complex reproductive behavior evolved, and finally, derived crabs were thought to disperse back to the IndoPacific from the Americas. In contrast our phylogeny suggests that the ancestral group, which shows complex reproductive behavior, now resides wholly in the American-Atlantic region, as opposed to the postulated Indo-west-Pacific. Behavioral and ecological complexity must have arisen independently in the American and IndoPacific faunal regions. The pan-tropical subgenus Celuca seems to be polyphyletic, which suggests that the evolution of morphology, ecology and behavior involves convergence in geographically separated locales. This study highlights the dangers of postulating evolution from a center of origin, even if it fits data that can be assigned to an evolutionary trend.

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    Contribution number 970 from the Program in Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook.

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