WoRMS source details
Watanabe, H. K.; Uyeno, D.; Yamamori, L.; Jimi, N.; Chen, C. (2023). From commensalism to parasitism within a genus-level clade of barnacles. Biology Letters. 19(20220550):1-6.
454224
10.1098/rsbl.2022.0550 [view]
Watanabe, H. K.; Uyeno, D.; Yamamori, L.; Jimi, N.; Chen, C.
2023
From commensalism to parasitism within a genus-level clade of barnacles
Biology Letters
19(20220550):1-6
Publication
The host taxon genus, Laetmonice, is misspelled at every usage as Laetomonice [sic]
Understanding how animals evolve to become parasites is key to unravelling how biodiversity is generated as a whole, as parasites could account for half of all species richness. Two significant impediments to this are that parasites fossilize poorly and that they retain few clear shared morphological features with non-parasitic relatives. Barnacles include some of the most astonishingly adapted parasites with the adult body reduced to just a network of tubes plus an external reproductive body, but how they originated from the sessile, filter-feeding form is still a mystery. Here, we present compelling molecular evidence that the exceedingly rare scale-worm parasite barnacle Rhizolepas is positioned within a clade comprising species currently assigned to Octolasmis, a genus exclusively commensal with at least six different phyla of animals. Our results imply that species in this genus-level clade represent an array of species at various transitional stages from free-living to parasitic in terms of plate reduction and host-parasite intimacy. Diverging only about 19.15 million years ago, the route to parasitism in Rhizolepas was associated with rapid modifications in anatomy, a pattern that was likely true for many other parasitic lineages.
Japan
Molecular systematics, Molecular biology
Parasites, Parasitism
Parasites, Parasitism
Date
action
by
Laetmonice Kinberg, 1856 (biology source)
Spelling
'Laetmonice' would seem to be simple to spell correctly but the Hartman catalogue lists some strange ... [details]