HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Copyright Statement

All rights reserved. This publication is intended for use solely by faculty, students, and staff of Nova Southeastern University. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, now known or later developed, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher.

Defense Date

2000

Document Type

Thesis - NSU Access Only

Department

Oceanographic Center

First Advisor

Charles G. Messing

Second Advisor

Michael R. J. Forstner

Third Advisor

Mahmood Shivji

Abstract

The crinoid family Comasteridae has undergone several revisions based on morphological characters. None, however, have employed DNA sequence data to generate a phylogenetic hypothesis for the group. To elucidate both monophyletic clades and generic interrelationships, DNA was obtained from 32 taxa, and 655 aligned base positions from near the 3' terminus of the mitochondrial 16S rDNA gene were sequenced. The results of analyses by maximum parsimony, neighbor-joining, and maximum likelihood methods support the majority of the current morphologically defined generic designations, though one genus emerges as paraphyletic and another as polyphyletic. Intergeneric relationships are less clear though strong support of several sister-clade relationships is evident including Comatella/Alloeocomatelia and Comanthus (in part)/Clarkcomanthus. Subfamilial designations are moderately to strongly supported in the Comanthinae but weakly supported elsewhere.

This initial assessment of phylogenetic relationships within the family poses a number of additional questions and directions for future research. It will serve as the launching point for future systematic research both within the family Comasteridae and for comatulid crinoids in general.

Files over 10MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "Save as..."

To access this thesis/dissertation you must have a valid nova.edu OR mynsu.nova.edu email address and create an account for NSUWorks.

Free My Thesis

If you are the author of this work and would like to grant permission to make it openly accessible to all, please click the Free My Thesis button.

  Link to NovaCat

COinS