1998/12/01 by Greg W. Rouse, Kristian Fauchald · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Marine Biology and Ecology Research #Marine and coastal plant biology #Parasite Biology and Host Interactions
paper · doi:10.1093/icb/38.6.953
openalex publication_date 1998/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
SYNOPSIS. In recent years the monophyly of the Annelida and Polychaeta has been questioned, with various authors proposing that groups such as the Arthropoda, Echiura and Pogonophora render the Annelida and / or Polychaeta paraphyletic. The Clitellata have also been proposed to be a member of the Polychaeta, poten-tially making this latter taxon synonymous with the Annelida. The relationships within the traditionally formulated Polychaeta have never been investigated using cladistic methodology. Recent classifications of polychaetes show a large number of "orders " with no real attempts to relate the groups in a phylogenetic sense. In this paper a number of recent studies on annelid systematics and classification are reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on the cladistic parsimony analyses of Rouse and Fauchald (1995, 1997) where a comprehensive assessment of the relationships among the various polychaete and annelid groups was attempted. A contrasting result by Westheide (1997) using a different methodology, is also outlined and discussed.