ASTERIIDAE (Fisher, 1940)

Mah, Christopher & Foltz, David, 2011, Molecular phylogeny of the Forcipulatacea (Asteroidea: Echinodermata): systematics and biogeography, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 162 (3), pp. 646-660 : 653

THE ASTERIIDAE : OVERVIEW

The restricted Asteriidae contains four primary clades, representing the most recent and diverse radiation of taxa within the Forcipulatacea. Three are associated with discrete biogeographic regions, whereas the fourth ( Sclerasterias ) is widely distributed in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. These clades include: (1) the boreal clade, which includes primarily genera from the Northern Hemisphere, although one or two exceptional Southern Hemisphere genera are also included; (2) the Sclerasterias clade, including ~14 globally distributed species; and (3) and (4), the Antarctic and pantropical clades, which are strongly supported (94% on the two-gene tree; 97% on the three-gene tree) as sister taxa in both of our trees ( Figs 2 , 3 ). The Antarctic clade includes nominal Asteriidae , which are present only in the Southern Ocean and adjacent regions. The pantropical clade includes several asteriid genera that occur primarily at low latitudes, often in shallowwater, tropical settings.

Figures

Figure 2. Maximum-likelihood tree for 95 forcipulate taxa and nine velatidan taxa, rooted on 111 taxa belonging to the Valvatida, Paxillosida, and Notomyotida (these taxa have been omitted for clarity), and based on 261 bp of sequence data for the 12S rDNA gene and 437 bp for the 16S rDNA gene. Bootstrap support values are based on 250 pseudoreplicates and are shown as percentages when ± 50%. Named clades correspond either to traditional taxonomic groups or to geographically restricted lineages.

Figure 3. Maximum-likelihood tree for 78 forcipulate taxa and five velatidan taxa, based on 327 bp for the early-stage histone H3 gene plus the same rDNA sequences that were used in Figure 2. Bootstrap support values are based on 200 pseudoreplicates. Other details are as described in Figure 2.