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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 26, 2025

Individual Culturing of Tigriopus Copepods and Quantitative Analysis of Their Mate-guarding Behavior

Individual Culturing of Tigriopus Copepods and Quantitative Analysis of Their Mate-guarding Behavior

Published on: September 26, 2018

Copepod phylogenomics supports Canuelloida as a valid order separate from Harpacticoida.

James P Bernot¹, Sahar Khodami², Jens Boyen³

¹Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, CT 06269, USA; Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, DC 20560, USA.

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

|February 22, 2025

Summary

Phylogenomic data confirm Canuelloida as a distinct copepod order and resolve relationships among major copepod groups. This research clarifies copepod evolutionary history, despite challenges in sampling diverse species.

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Area of Science:

Zoology
Evolutionary Biology
Genomics

Background:

Copepods are crucial aquatic crustaceans with poorly understood phylogenetic relationships.
The validity of higher-level copepod taxa, including several orders, remains debated.
Understanding copepod phylogeny is vital due to their ecological abundance and diversity.

Purpose of the Study:

To resolve phylogenetic relationships among the four major copepod orders: Calanoida, Cyclopoida, Harpacticoida, and Siphonostomatoida.
To assess the validity of the recently proposed order Canuelloida using phylogenomic data.
To investigate the monophyly of Podoplea and the sister taxon relationship to Calanoida.

Main Methods:

Phylogenomic analysis of 28 copepod transcriptomes and genomes.
Identification and analysis of 2,527 single copy protein coding genes.
Phylogenetic analyses using multiple methods and gene tree discordance analysis.

Main Results:

Phylogenetic analyses strongly support a monophyletic Podoplea with Calanoida as the sister taxon.
The order Canuelloida is confirmed as distinct from Harpacticoida.
Cyclopoida and Harpacticoida are recovered as sister taxa, rejecting alternative topologies.

Conclusions:

Phylogenomic data effectively resolve the copepod backbone phylogeny.
The study validates Canuelloida as a distinct order, clarifying copepod classification.
Challenges in sampling small and rare copepod species persist for comprehensive phylogenetic reconstruction.