The origins of molluscs
2014/11/26 by Jakob Vinther · 100 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Biology #Cephalopods and Marine Biology #Clade #Evolutionary biology #Marine Biology and Ecology Research #Morphology (biology) #Paleontology #Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils #Phylogenetic tree #Sister group #Zoology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/pala.12140
published in Palaeontology 58(1), 19-34 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2014/11/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract
Abstract The interrelationships and evolutionary history of molluscs have seen great advances in the last decade. Recent phylogenetic studies have allowed alternative morphology‐based evolutionary scenarios to be tested and, most significantly, shown that the aplacophorans are sister group to polyplacophorans (chitons), corroborating palaeontological and embryological evolutionary scenarios in which aplacophorans are secondarily simplified from a chiton‐like ancestor. Aplacophoran morphology therefore does not represent the plesiomorphic condition for molluscs as a whole. The mollusc crown group radiated in the Early Cambrian, and rapidly thereafter, stem lineages to the major molluscan classes emerged: cephalopods, gastropods, bivalves (= pelecypods), monoplacophorans, rostroconchs (inferred stem scaphopods) and aculiferans. This attests to the fast, adaptive radiation of the crown group during the Cambrian explosion. K imberella from the latest Ediacaran exhibits several molluscan traits, which justifies its position as a molluscan stem‐group member, rather than as a more basal L ophotrochozoan. The interrelationships among the conchiferan molluscs are still a matter of contention and require further palaeontological and molecular phylogenetic scrutiny.
Citations
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