Phylogenomic analyses shed light on the relationships of chiton superfamilies and shell-eye evolution

Mollusca is the second-largest animal phylum with over 100,000 extant species representing eight classes. Across 1000 extant species in the class Polyplacophora, chitons have a relatively constrained morphology but with some notable deviations. Several genera possess "shell eyes", i.e., true eyes with a lens and retina that are embedded within the dorsal shells. The phylogeny of the major chiton clades is mostly well established, in a set of superfamily-level and higher level taxa supported by various approaches, including morphological studies, multiple gene markers, mitogenome-phylogeny, and phylotranscriptomic approaches. However, one critical lineage has remained unclear, namely Schizochiton which was controversially suggested as being the potential independent origin of chiton shell eyes. Here, with the draft genome sequencing of Schizochiton incisus (superfamily Schizochitonoidea) plus assemblies of transcriptome data from other polyplacophorans, we present phylogenetic reconstructions using both mitochondrial genomes and phylogenomic approaches with multiple methods. We found that phylogenetic trees from mitogenomic data are inconsistent, reflecting larger scale confounding factors in molluscan mitogenomes. However, a consistent and robust topology was generated with protein-coding genes using different models and methods. Our results support Schizochitonoidea as the sister group to other Chitonoidea in Chitonina, in agreement with the established classification. Combined with evidence from fossils, our phylogenetic results suggest that the earliest origin of shell eyes is in Schizochitonoidea, and that these structures were also gained secondarily in other genera in Chitonoidea. Our results have generated a holistic review of the internal relationship within Polyplacophora, and a better understanding of the evolution of Polyplacophora.