Phylogenetic relationships of the family Carditidae (Bivalvia: Archiheterodonta)

Abstract

Carditidae is a highly speciose group of bivalves but is one of the more neglected and poorly studied families. This work presents the first phylogenetic study of the entire family, using 77 species-level taxa (including fossil and recent terminals) and 144 new morphological characters. Multiple searches were conducted, including comparisons of discrete and continuous characters and equal and implied weighting. Morphological disparity analysis, phylomorphospace construction and phylogenetic signal analysis were performed using the character matrix. A new systematic scheme is suggested on the basis of these results, including the already proposed subfamily Palaeocarditinae, the re-defined Carditinae, Thecaliinae (included within Carditinae in some searches), Carditamerinae (with reduced diversity) and Venericardiinae (with extended diversity). The new subfamily Scalaricarditinae and the new clades Eucarditidae (all carditids excluding Palaeocarditinae), Carditida (Carditinae + Thecaliinae + Carditamerinae) and Cyclocardida (Cyclocardia + Pleuromeris + Scalaricarditinae  + Miodomeridinae) are proposed. The monophyly of the planicostate and alticostate lineages are confirmed within the Venericardiinae (now formally named Venericorini and Venericardiini, respectively). The relationships of Palaeocarditinae with other carditids and the origin of the family are discussed, as well as the phylogenetic placement of other carditid genera not included in the analyses. Homoplasy and the phylogenetic signals of different morphological characters are also explored and discussed.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:7CDE8AC5-9B1E-4134-BD99-A2026032CAA7

Keywords:

• Carditidae
• Bivalvia
• Archiheterodonta
• phylogeny
• systematics

Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to those curators and researchers who facilitated access to collections: M. Longobucco and C. del Río (MACN-Pi and CIRGEO-PI, Buenos Aires), M. Tanuz (CPBA, Buenos Aires), A. Tablado (MACN-In, Buenos Aires), A. Riccardi (MLP), L. Pérez (MLP), M. De la Fuente and I. Maniel (MHNSR.Pi, San Rafael), M. Rodríguez (SGN, Buenos Aires), C. Salazar (SGO.Pi, Santiago) and C. Frazén (PZ-NMR.Mo, Stockholm). I wish to thank the following for providing photographic material: T. Waller and M. Florence (USNM.Mo, Washington, DC); M. Munt (NHMUK, London); J-M. Pacaud (MNHM, Paris); P. Schuchert and L. Cavin (GMNH, Genève); J. Sime and P. Callomon (ANSP, Philadelphia); J. Simes (TM, GNS Science, Wellington); and T. Trnski, W. Blom and H. Schlumpf (AK, Auckland). I thank M. Griffin (MLP) and S. Popov (RAS, Moscow) for sharing bibliographic data, W. Svagelj for help with the GLM analysis, M. Ramírez (MACN-Ar) for help with terminal taxon selection and theoretical design of the phylogenetic analyses, and C. del Río (MACN-Pi) for guidance during my PhD thesis. I thank O. Lehmann (CPBA) for the script for multiple implied weighting searching, C. Mengoni Goñalons for help with art work, M. Alvarez and M. B. Santelli (MACN-Pi) for their valuable suggestions and assistance with figures. I also thank I. Maniel (MHNSR), P. Milla Carmona (CPBA), O. Lehmann (CPBA) and M. Ezcurra (MACN) for their useful suggestions, help with different methodologies and valuable comments, and I. Maniel, M. Ezcurra and P. Picasso for their valuable help with language. Thanks to S. Schneider (CASP) for his constructive comments as a reviewer. CONICET is acknowledged for the post-graduate grants given to the author and the use of TNT software is facilitated by the Willi Hennig Society.

Supplemental data

Supplementary material for this article can be accessed here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2018.1532463