Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 8, 2026

Ablation of a Single Cell From Eight-cell Embryos of the Amphipod Crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis
Published on: March 16, 2014
Phylogeny of Paramysis (Crustacea: Mysida) and the origin of Ponto-Caspian endemic diversity: resolving power from
Asta Audzijonyte1, Mikhail E Daneliya, Nikolai Mugue
1Finnish Museum of Natural History, POB 17, FI-00014, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. audzi@mbari.org
Abstract:
The Ponto-Caspian (Black and Caspian seas) brackish-water fauna represents a special case of the endemic diversification in world's ancient lakes; it also involves a hotspot of continental diversity in the predominantly marine mysid crustaceans. We explored the origins and history of the mysid diversification in a phylogenetic analysis of some 20 endemic Ponto-Caspian species mainly of the genus Paramysis and their marine congeners, using sequences of two nuclear protein-coding genes, two nuclear rRNA genes, the mitochondrial COI gene and morphological data. A nearly completely resolved phylogeny was recovered, with no indication of rapid diversification bursts. Deep divergences were found among the main endemic clades, attesting to a long independent faunal history in the continental Paratethys waters. The current marine Paramysis species make a monophyletic cluster secondarily derived from the continental Paratethyan (Ponto-Caspian) Paramysis ancestors. The good phylogenetic resolution was mainly due to the two nuclear protein-coding genes, opsin and EPRS, here for the first time applied to peracarid systematics. In contrast, 'conventional' mtDNA and nuclear rRNA genes provided poor topological resolution and weak congruence of divergence rates. The two nuclear protein-coding genes had more congruent rates of evolution, and were about 10-15 times slower than the mitochondrial COI gene.
Related Concept Videos
Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons
Phylogenetic Species Concept in Microbiology
Diversity of Protists III
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?
In contrast, regions which code...
Diversity of Protists IV
Diversity of Protists II

