Phylogenomics of myzostomids and annelids - causes and consequences of incongruence in phylogenetic analyses

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Whereas molecular phylogenies based on single or a few genes often lead to apparently conflicting signals, the use of phylogenomics was thought to overcome these problems, and “ending incongruence” was in sight. Despite these hopes, subsequent analysis of metazoan phylogeny using phylogenomic datasets still disagree in many parts of the tree. Reasons for incongruence between markers might be either biological or methodological. Using myzostomids as an example, it has been shown that genes belonging to different functional classes or macromolecular complexes support different hypothesis regarding the phylogenetic origin of this group. However, due to lack of data, analysing this phenomenon in a rigorous statistical framework was not possible yet. The proposed project aims to sequence the Myzostoma cirriferum transcriptom using 454-sequencing techniques. Analysing this data, it is proposed to investigate the role of functional classes of genes on phylogeny reconstruction. Moreover, it is planned to conduct simulation studies to investigate the impact of incongruent signal on analysing concatenated datasets. Finally, it is envisaged to establish a well supported phylogeny of annelid and related lophotrochozoan taxa with special emphasis placed on the Myzostomida.