Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-08T15:25:17.719Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Timing marine–freshwater transitions in the diatom order Thalassiosirales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Andrew J. Alverson
Andrew J. Alverson*
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, U.S.A. E-mail: aja@uark.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

With species found throughout both marine and fresh waters, the diatom order Thalassiosirales is one of the most phylogenetically and ecologically diverse lineages of planktonic diatoms. A clear understanding of the timescale of Thalassiosirales evolution would provide novel insights into the rates and patterns of species diversification associated with major habitat shifts, as well as provide valuable context for understanding the age and evolutionary history of the model species, Cyclotella nana (= Thalassiosira pseudonana). The freshwater fossil record for Thalassiosirales is extensive, well characterized, and generally supportive of a Miocene origin for the major freshwater lineages. The marine record is, by comparison, more sparse and in many cases, unverified. The discovery of freshwater thalassiosiroids in Eocene sediments pushed the freshwater fossil record considerably further back in time, highlighting an apparent gap of some 30 million years. An alternative interpretation is that the Miocene and Eocene reports represent competing hypotheses. In the absence of additional independent and decisive fossil data, I explored the relative plausibility of these two scenarios with Bayesian relaxed molecular clock methods under a range of fossil calibration schemes. Although I found no support for the Eocene fossil dates, the two major freshwater colonization events probably occurred much earlier than previously thought—as early as the Paleocene for Cyclotella, followed by an Eocene origin for the cyclostephanoid lineage. Much of the extant freshwater diversity in both lineages traces back to the Miocene, however, giving the impression of a single Miocene origin. Efforts to infer the timescale of Thalassiosirales evolution more accurately would benefit from a systematic reevaluation of the marine fossil record and formal integration of fossil species into existing phylogenetic hypotheses.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , Winter 2014 , pp. 91 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Alverson, A. J., Kang, S.-H., and Theriot, E. C. 2006. Cell wall morphology and systematic importance of Thalassiosira ritscheri (Hustedt) Hasle, with a description of Shionodiscus gen. nov. Diatom Research 21:251–262.Google Scholar
Alverson, A. J., Jansen, R. K., and Theriot, E. C. 2007. Bridging the Rubicon: phylogenetic analysis reveals repeated colonizations of marine and fresh waters by thalassiosiroid diatoms. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 45:193–210.Google Scholar
Alverson, A. J., Beszteri, B., Julius, M. L., and Theriot, E. C. 2011. The model marine diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana likely descended from a freshwater ancestor in the genus Cyclotella. BMC Evolutionary Biology 11:125.Google Scholar
Desikachary, T., and Sreelatha, P. 1989. Oamaru diatoms. Bibliotheca Diatomologica, Band 19. J. Cramer, Berlin.Google Scholar
Donoghue, P. C. J., and Benton, M. J. 2007. Rocks and clocks: calibrating the Tree of Life using fossils and molecules. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 22:424–431.Google Scholar
Drummond, A. J., Ho, S. Y. W., Phillips, M. J., and Rambaut, A. 2006. Relaxed phylogenetics and dating with confidence. PLoS Biology 4 (5):e88.Google Scholar
Edwards, A. R. 1991. The Oamaru diatomite. DSIR Geology and Geophysics, Lower Hutt, N.Z.Google Scholar
Fourtanier, E., Gasse, F., Bellier, O., Bonhomme, M. G., and Robles, I. 1993. Miocene non-marine diatoms from the western Cordillera basins of northern Peru. Diatom Research 8:13–30.Google Scholar
Glezer, Z. I., and Makarova, I. V. 1986. New order and family of diatoms (Bacillariophyta). Botanicheskii Zhurnal (Leningrad) 71:673–676.Google Scholar
Gombos, A. M., and Ciesielski, P. F. 1983. Late Eocene to Early Miocene diatoms from the southwest Atlantic. InLudwig, W. J., Krasheninikov, V. A., et al., eds. Initial Reports of the Deep Sea Drilling Project 71:583–634. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
Håkansson, H., and Khursevich, G. 1997. Tertiarius gen. nov., a new genus in the Bacillariophyceae, the transfer of some cyclotelloid species and a comparison to closely related genera. Diatom Research 12:19–33.Google Scholar
Hasle, G. R., and Syvertsen, E. E. 1985. Thalassiosiropsis, a new diatom genus from the fossil records. Micropaleontology (New York) 31:82–91.Google Scholar
Hasle, G. R., and Syvertsen, E. E. 1997. Marine diatoms. Pp. 5–386inTomas, C. R., ed. Identifying marine phytoplankton. Academic Press, San Diego.Google Scholar
Kaczmarska, I., and Ehrman, J. M. 2008. Poloniasira fryxelliana Kaczmarska and Ehrman, a new thalassiosiroid diatom (Bacillariophyta) from the Lower Oligocene diatomites in Polish Flysch Carpathians, southeast Poland. Pp. 217–230inMedlin, L. K., Doucette, G. J., and Villac, M. C., eds. Phytoplankton evolution, taxonomy and ecology. J. Cramer, Berlin.Google Scholar
Khursevich, G., and Kociolek, J. P. 2012. A preliminary, worldwide inventory of the extinct, freshwater fossil diatoms from the orders Thalassiosirales, Stephanodiscales, Paraliales, Aulacoseirales, Melosirales, Coscindiscales, and Biddulphiales. Pp. 315–364inWitkowski, A., Kociolek, J. P., and Compère, P., eds. Diatom taxonomy and ecology: from local discoveries to global impacts. J. Cramer in Borntraeger Science Publishers, Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Krebs, W. N. 1990. The biochronology of freshwater planktonic diatom communities in western North America. Pp. 485–499inKociolek, J. P., ed. Proceedings of the 11th International Diatom Symposium. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Medlin, L. K., and Kaczmarska, I. 2004. Evolution of the diatoms. V. Morphological and cytological support for the major clades and a taxonomic revision. Phycologia 43:245–270.Google Scholar
Medlin, L. K., Kooistra, W. H. C. F., Gersonde, R., and Wellbrock, U. 1996. Evolution of the diatoms (Bacillariophyta). III. Molecular evidence for the origin of the Thalassiosirales. Nova Hedwigia Beiheft 112:221–234.Google Scholar
Near, T. J., Meylan, P. A., and Shaffer, H. B. 2005. Assessing concordance of fossil calibration points in molecular clock studies: an example using turtles. American Naturalist 165:137–146.Google Scholar
Sanders, K. L., and Lee, M. S. Y. 2007. Evaluating molecular clock calibrations using Bayesian analyses with soft and hard bounds. Biology Letters 3:275–279.Google Scholar
Serieyssol, K., and Gasse, F. 1991. Diatomées néogènes du Massif central Français: quelques faits biostratigraphiques. Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, série 2 312:957–964.Google Scholar
Shiono, M., and Koizumi, I. 2000. Taxonomy of the Thalassiosira trifulta group in late Neogene sediments from the northwest Pacific Ocean. Diatom Research 15:355–382.Google Scholar
Sims, P. A. 1994. Benetorus, Gladiopsis and related genera from the Cretaceous. Diatom Research 9:165–187.Google Scholar
Sims, P. A., Mann, D. G., and Medlin, L. K. 2006. Evolution of the diatoms: insights from fossil, biological and molecular data. Phycologia 45:361–402.Google Scholar
Sorhannus, U. 2007. A nuclear-encoded small-subunit ribosomal RNA timescale for diatom evolution. Marine Micropaleontology 65:1–12.Google Scholar
Theriot, E., and Bradbury, J. P. 1987. Mesodictyon, a new fossil genus of the centric diatom family Thalassiosiraceae from the Miocene Chalk Hills Formation, western Snake River Plain, Idaho. Micropaleontology 33:356–367.Google Scholar
Theriot, E., and Kociolek, J. P. 1986. Two new Pliocene species of Cyclostephanos (Bacillariophyceae) with comments on the classification of the freshwater Thalassiosiraceae. Journal of Phycology 22:121–128.Google Scholar
Theriot, E., and Serieyssol, K. 1994. Phylogenetic systematics as a guide to understanding features and potential morphological characters of the centric diatom family Thalassiosiraceae. Diatom Research 9:429–450.Google Scholar
Theriot, E. C. 2008. Application of phylogenetic principles to testing evolutionary scenarios: a comment on Kaczmarska et al. “Molecular phylogeny of selected members of the order Thalassiosirales (Bacillariophyta) and evolution of the fultoportula.” Journal of Phycology 44:821–833.Google Scholar
Warnock, R. C. M., Yang, Z., and Donoghue, P. C. J. 2011. Exploring uncertainty in the calibration of the molecular clock. Biology Letters 8:156–159.Google Scholar
Welch, J. J., and Bromham, L. 2005. Molecular dating when rates vary. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20:320–327.Google Scholar
Wolfe, A. P., and Siver, P. A. 2009. Three extant genera of freshwater thalassiosiroid diatoms from middle Eocene sediments in northern Canada. American Journal of Botany 96:487–497.Google Scholar
Yang, Z. 2007. PAML 4: phylogenetic analysis by maximum likelihood. Molecular Biology Evolution 24:1586–1591.Google Scholar