A genome-based phylogeny for Mollusca is concordant with fossils and morphology
2025/02/27 by Zeyuan Chen, J. Antonio Baeza, Chong Chen +12 · 4 voices · 63 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Aquatic Invertebrate Ecology and Behavior #Biology #Body plan #Evolutionary biology #Gene #Genetics #Genome #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Marine Biology and Ecology Research #Mollusca #Morphology (biology) #Phylogenetics #Phylum #Zoology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.ads0215
published in Science 387(6737), 1001-1007 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
openalex publication_date 2025/02/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract
Extreme morphological disparity within Mollusca has long confounded efforts to reconstruct a stable backbone phylogeny for the phylum. Familiar molluscan groups-gastropods, bivalves, and cephalopods-each represent a diverse radiation with myriad morphological, ecological, and behavioral adaptations. The phylum further encompasses many more unfamiliar experiments in animal body-plan evolution. In this work, we reconstructed the phylogeny for living Mollusca on the basis of metazoan BUSCO (Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs) genes extracted from 77 (13 new) genomes, including multiple members of all eight classes with two high-quality genome assemblies for monoplacophorans. Our analyses confirm a phylogeny proposed from morphology and show widespread genomic variation. The flexibility of the molluscan genome likely explains both historic challenges with their genomes and their evolutionary success.
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Discussions
- [New Paper] is on the COVER of @science.org !! FIRST genome-phylogeny of MOLLUSCS (snails, clams, octopus, etc.) complete with ALL classes —incl. the mythical "living fossil" Monoplacophora— reveals [bsky, 75 points, 7 comments]
- Interesting read! A genome-based phylogeny for Mollusca is concordant with fossils and morphology: doi.org/10.1126/scie... #evolution #genomics #mollusca #fossil #phylogeny #morphology #biodiversity [bsky, 47 points, 1 comments]
- Only 3 weeks until @kmkocot.bsky.social 's SICB Zoom on Icy #Invertebrates! 👏 Kevin is a coauthor featured in www.science.org/doi/full/10.... & ICB co-author of doi.org/10.1093/icb/... See what h [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ads0215 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
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