SPP 1174: Deep Metazoan Phylogeny

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The Priority Programme combines resources and expertise to clarify important aspects of the phylogeny of large metazoan taxa and to infer processes of molecular evolution and of the historical evolution of phenotypes. In focus are the phylogenetic relationships between animal taxa traditionally classified as phyla . Past publications based on morphological or molecular data or combining both are extremely inconsistent, partly because data quality was not evaluated, partly because processes of evolution are not well understood. The Ecdysozoa hypothesis, for example, combines nematods and arthropods in a single clade, contradicting the Articulata , a clade composed of annelids and arthropods. The first is mainly supported by molecular data of unpublished signal to noise ratio, the second is based on morphological observations. The contradictions are currently unsettling biologists whose research depends on correct phylogenies, teachers, authors of textbooks.