A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of coelacanth fishes (Sarcopterygii, Actinistia) with comments on the composition of the Mawsoniidae and Latimeriidae: evaluating old and new methodological challenges and constraints

ABSTRACT

The phylogeny of coelacanths (Devonian-Recent) has been a matter of discussion at least since 1940s following the discovery of Latimeria chalumnae, and it remains as a revisited issue in most recent works. In this contribution, an updated phylogenetic analysis based on a new consensual data matrix is presented, merging most of the emendations proposed over the past two decades, and including a completely reviewed character scoring for some genera. Also, a complete Stratigraphic Tree Analysis is introduced, calibrating divergence times, branch lengths, potential ghost ranges and quantifying the stratigraphic fit of the trees. The topologies are congruent with previous analyses, with exceptions: Mawsoniidae and Latimeriidae include some genera previously not considered as such. Implied weights analysis indicates that this result is influenced by homoplasies. Time-scaled phylogenies show a great proportion of cladogenetic events concentrated in the Permian-Triassic transition, leading to the diversification of the Mesozoic modern stock of the group (Latimerioidei). In spite of some large ghost ranges (e.g. Latimeria, ranging from Middle-Upper Jurassic), the metrics indicate relatively good stratigraphic fits. Although additional reviews of both the character codings and the scorings of several taxa are still needed, these preliminary results can constitute an input for future macroevolutionary studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Actinistia
• Mawsoniidae
• Latimeriidae
• Mawsonia
• Latimeria
• phylogenetic analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the following curators, researchers, directors, and collaborators for contributing to the access to their institutional comparative collections and sharing information about specimens:

Marise Sardenberg Salgado de Carvalho (Museu de Ciências da Terra, Serviço Geológico do Brasil), Flavia Alessandra Figueiredo and Joao C. Rodrigues (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Geologia), Alana Gishlick, John Maisey, Thomas R. Vigliotta, Chloé A. H. Lewis and Scott A. Schaefer (AMNH), Alejandra Rojas (FC-DPV), Jorge Da Silva (MGT), Emma Bernard and Martha Richter (NHM-L), Rachel Berquist and Laurence Frank (Digital Fish Library, University of California, USA), and Timothy Rowe and Jessica Maisano (DigiMorph.org, and National Science Foundation grant IIS-9874781).

Special thanks to Marise Carvalho, Marcelo Loureiro and Fernando Pérez Miles for the critical review of an early version of this work; and to Hugo Dutel and John Maisey for their useful comments. Fernando Pérez Miles, Carlos Perafán, Diego Pol and Jeffrey A. Wilson are thanked for their advice on TNT, and also the Willi Hennig Society for sharing this software.

Special thanks to Laurent Ballesta and Sylvie Jaumes (Gombessa Expeditions - Andromède Océanologie) for sharing the outstanding photograph of L. chalumnae; and to Andrey Belov for sharing his beautiful paleoart with us.

AMNH Research Library and Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia are thanked for authorising the use of the images included in Figure 2.

To Lionel Cavin, Camila Cupello, Valeria de Olivera, Marcus Eckhardt, Martín Ezcurra, Léo Galvao Carnier Fragoso, Valéria Gallo, Jens Frahm, Bernd Fritzsch, Hamid Haddoumi, Karol Hensel, Anthony Herrel, Rohan Mansuit, Graeme Lloyd, Kawilarang W. A. Masengi, Francois Meunier, Felipe Montenegro, Yusuke Minoshima, Fritz Pfeil, Hans-Peter Schultze, David R. Schwimmer, Ingrid Martins Machado Garcia Veiga, Mariano Verde and Yoshitaka Yabumoto, for providing bibliography during the development of this research.

Gareth Dyke (editor), Lionel Cavin and two anonymous reviewers are thanked for comments and suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript, and L. Cavin and one of the latter for warning us about the case of Reidus.

Disclosure statement

The authors of A COMPREHENSIVE PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF COELACANTH FISHES (SARCOPTERYGII, ACTINISTIA) WITH COMMENTS ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE MAWSONIIDAE AND LATIMERIIDAE: EVALUATING OLD AND NEW METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS declare they have no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by: Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación [FCE_1_2014_1_104620, POS_FCE_2015_1_1005307, POS_NAC_2018_1_152168];American Museum of Natural History [Collection Study Grants (2017)];Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica [C028-348, C905-348, Movilidad e Intercambios Académicos (2018)];PEDECIBA [(2016-2020)]