Craniid brachiopods: aspects of clade structure and distribution reflect continental drift (Brachiopoda: Craniiformea)

We present maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference relative time‐tree analyses of aligned gene sequences from a worldwide collection of craniiform brachiopods belonging to two genera, Novocrania and Neoancistrocrania. Sequences were obtained from one mitochondrial and three nuclear‐encoded ribosomal RNA genes from varying numbers of specimens. Data‐exploration by network (splits) analyses indicates that each gene identifies the same divergent clades and (with one minor exception) the same inter‐clade relationships. Neoancistrocrania specimens were found only in the Pacific Ocean, near Japan, on the Norfolk and Chesterfield Ridges, and near the Solomon Islands. The Novocrania clades, in approximate order of increasing distance from the root comprise 1. a ‘Northern’ clade of animals collected in the NE. Atlantic, W. Mediterranean and Adriatic; 2. a ‘Tethyan’ clade comprising animals from the E. Mediterranean, Cape Verde islands and the Caribbean (Belize and Jamaica); 3. a ‘NE. Pacific’ clade containing animals from Vancouver Island and from localities near Japan and south of Taiwan; 4. a ‘Southern’ clade that contains two widely separated subclades, one from New Zealand and the other with an extraordinarily wide distribution, ranging from near Japan in the north to the Chesterfield Ridge and Solomon Islands in the West, and in the East to the Galapagos Islands, the coast of South America (Chile) and Richardson seamount (off South Africa) in the South Atlantic. To the South, members of this clade were found in the Weddell, Scotia and Bellinghausen Antarctic Seas. The root of the extant craniid radiation was previously found (by relaxed‐clock analysis) to lie on the branch connecting the two genera so that, in effect, the one clade of Neoancistrocrania serves to polarise evolutionary relationships within the several clades of Novocrania. As previously suggested, all results confirm that Neoancistrocrania is sister to the ‘Northern’ Novocrania clade, and this leads to a proposal that Neoancistrocrania represents one extreme of a wide range of variation in ancestral ventral valve mineralisation, speciation (～90 Ma) resulting from competitive exclusion in rapidly‐growing reef environments. To the extent possible, the identified molecular clades are correlated with named species of Novocrania. The reproductive and population biology of craniid brachiopods is not well known, but from available evidence they are considered to have low‐dispersal potential and, except in enclosed localities such as cold‐water fjords, to have small effective population sizes, features which are consistent with the observed divergent populations in well‐separated localities. Exceptionally slow craniid molecular (rDNA) evolution is suggested by the short branch of Novocrania where it has been used as an outgroup for large‐scale analyses of metazoans. Slow molecular evolution is also indicated by the existence of a distinct Tethyan clade, reflecting restricted dispersal at former times, and by the uniform, short, genetic distances and exceptionally wide geographical distribution of the Southern clade. Thus, the geographical distribution and phylogenetic divergence of craniid brachiopods is an example of phylotectonics, in which relationships revealed by phylogenetic analyses reflect opportunities for dispersal and settlement that were created by tectonic plate movements associated, in this case, with opening and closure of Tethys and the breakup of Gondwana. Molecular dating of craniid divergences and radiochemical dating of tectonic events thus illuminate one another. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London