Rapid evolutionary divergences in reef fishes of the family Acanthuridae (Perciformes: Teleostei)

A phylogenetic analysis of the sugeonfish family Acanthuridae was conducted to investigate: (a) the pattern of divergences among outgroup and basal ingroup taxa, (b) the pattern of species divergences within acanthurid genera, (c) monophyly in the genus Acanthurus, and (d) the evolution of thick-walled stomach morphology in the genera Acanthurus and Ctenochaetus. Fragments of the 12S, 16S, t-Pro, and control region mitochondrial genes were sequenced for 21 acanthurid taxa (representing all extant genera) and four outgroup taxa. Unweighted parsimony analysis produced two optimal trees. Both of these were highly incongruent with a previous morphological phylogeny, especially with regard to the placement of the monotypic outgroups Zanclus and Luvarus. The maximum likelihood tree and the morphological phylogeny were not significantly different and the conflicting branches were very short. Split decomposition analysis identified conflict in the placement of long basal branches separated by short internodes, providing further evidence that long branch attraction is an important cause of disagreement between molecular and morphological trees. Parametric bootstrapping rejected hypotheses of monophyly of: (a) the genus Acanthurus and (b) a group containing representatives of Acanthurus/Ctenochaetus with thick-walled stomachs. The branching pattern of the likelihood and split decomposition trees indicates that evolution in the acanthurid clade has involved at least three periods of intense speciation.