5 research outputs found
Early members of âliving fossilâ lineage imply later origin of modern ray-finned fishes
Modern ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) comprise half of extant vertebrate species and are widely thought to have originated before or near the end of the Middle Devonian epoch (around 385âmillion years ago). Polypterids (bichirs and ropefish) represent the earliest-diverging lineage of living actinopterygians, with almost all Palaeozoic taxa interpreted as more closely related to other extant actinopterygians than to polypterids. By contrast, the earliest material assigned to the polypterid lineage is mid-Cretaceous in age (around 100âmillion years old), implying a quarter-of-a-billion-year palaeontological gap. Here we show that scanilepiforms, a widely distributed radiation from the Triassic period (around 252â201âmillion years ago), are stem polypterids. Importantly, these fossils break the long polypterid branch and expose many supposedly primitive features of extant polypterids as reversals. This shifts numerous Palaeozoic ray-fins to the actinopterygian stem, reducing the minimum age for the crown lineage by roughly 45âmillion years. Recalibration of molecular clocks to exclude phylogenetically reassigned Palaeozoic taxa results in estimates that the actinopterygian crown lineage is about 20â40âmillion years younger than was indicated by previous molecular analyses. These new dates are broadly consistent with our revised palaeontological timescale and coincident with an interval of conspicuous morphological and taxonomic diversification among ray-fins centred on the DevonianâCarboniferous boundary. A shifting timescale, combined with ambiguity in the relationships of late Palaeozoic actinopterygians, highlights this part of the fossil record as a major frontier in understanding the evolutionary assembly of modern vertebrate diversity
Major issues in the origins of rayâfinned fish ( A ctinopterygii) biodiversity
Rayâfinned fishes ( A ctinopterygii) dominate modern aquatic ecosystems and are represented by over 32000 extant species. The vast majority of living actinopterygians are teleosts; their success is often attributed to a genome duplication event or morphological novelties. The remainder are âliving fossilsâ belonging to a few depauperate lineages with longâretained ecomorphologies: P olypteriformes (bichirs), H olostei (bowfin and gar) and C hondrostei (paddlefish and sturgeon). Despite over a century of systematic work, the circumstances surrounding the origins of these clades, as well as their basic interrelationships and diagnoses, have been largely mired in uncertainty. Here, I review the systematics and characteristics of these major rayâfinned fish clades, and the early fossil record of A ctinopterygii, in order to gauge the sources of doubt. Recent relaxed molecular clock studies have pushed the origins of actinopterygian crown clades to the midâlate P alaeozoic [ S ilurianâ C arboniferous; 420 to 298 million years ago ( M a)], despite a diagnostic body fossil record extending only to the later M esozoic (251 to 66 M a). This disjunct, recently termed the â T eleost G apâ (although it affects all crown lineages), is based partly on calibrations from potential P alaeozoic stemâtaxa and thus has been attributed to poor fossil sampling. Actinopterygian fossils of appropriate ages are usually abundant and well preserved, yet longâterm neglect of this record in both taxonomic and systematic studies has exacerbated the gaps and obscured potential synapomorphies. At the moment, it is possible that later P alaeozoicâage teleost, holostean, chondrostean and/or polypteriform crown taxa sit unrecognized in museum drawers. However, it is equally likely that the â T eleost G apâ is an artifact of incorrect attributions to extant lineages, overwriting both a postâ P alaeozoic crown actinopterygian radiation and the ecomorphological diversity of stemâtaxa.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109271/1/brv12086.pd