Fish are affected by changes in water systems, and their species differentiation and geographical distribution patterns are closely related to the evolutionary history of the Earth. Integrating molecular data of living fish species and extinct fossil records can provide biological evidence for the historical evolution of the Earth. However, most of the living fish appeared in the late Mesozoic and Cenozoic, and only a small number of living fish species can be traced back to the Mesozoic. Gars fish are a group of fish that originated a long time ago and survives to this day. Its fossil records can be traced back to 150 million years ago. Therefore, the species differentiation of Gars can be used to reveal the evolution history of the earth and changes in water systems.
The team of researcher He Shunping of the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the team of Professor Thomas Near of Yale University in the United States, conducted low-coverage genome sequencing of all seven species of the order Gar. Based on the identified 1105 orthologous genes and combined with a large number of fossil records, they systematically analyzed the species differentiation and biogeography processes of the order gar. The study found that: 1. The two extant genera of the order Gar, the gar and the gar, diverged 100 million years ago; 2. The differentiation time of various groups of the order perfectly reproduced the major geological tectonic events of the Mesozoic, including the formation of the American continent, the early Atlantic Ocean The expansion of , and the structure of continental rivers in North America during the Cretaceous; 3. The crown group of the genus Great Gar and the genus Gar originated in eastern North America in the Cenozoic, indicating that eastern North America is both the origin of the modern gar and , and also the refuge of this ancient group.
related results are titled Phylogenomics of the Ancient and Species-Depauperate Gars Tracks 150 Million Years of Continental Fragmentation in the Northern Hemisphere and published online on Systematic Biology. The research work was funded by the Strategic Priority Science and Technology Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Hubei Province Youth Top Talent Training Program.
Phylogeny and biogeographical processes of gar fish based on genomic data and fossil evidence
Source: Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
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