Support for a clade of Placozoa and Cnidaria in genes with minimal compositional bias

Abstract

The phylogenetic placement of the morphologically simple placozoans is crucial to understanding the evolution of complex animal traits. Here, we examine the influence of adding new genomes from placozoans to a large dataset designed to study the deepest splits in the animal phylogeny. Using site-heterogeneous substitution models, we show that it is possible to obtain strong support, in both amino acid and reduced-alphabet matrices, for either a sister-group relationship between Cnidaria and Placozoa, or for Cnidaria and Bilateria as seen in most published work to date, depending on the orthologues selected to construct the matrix. We demonstrate that a majority of genes show evidence of compositional heterogeneity, and that support for the Cnidaria + Bilateria clade can be assigned to this source of systematic error. In interpreting these results, we caution against a peremptory reading of placozoans as secondarily reduced forms of little relevance to broader discussions of early animal evolution.

eLife digest

Filter-feeding sponges and tiny gliding, pancake-like animals called placozoans are the only two major groups of animals that lack muscles, nerves and an internal gut. Sponges have historically been seen as the first to have branched off in animal phylogeny – the family tree of living organisms that shows how species are related. This is because it is assumed that they split from the other animals before features including muscles, nerves and internal guts evolved.

Sequences of their genetic material (the genome) support this view, although some argue that jellyfish-like animals called ctenophores branched first. One explanation for this disagreement is that ctenophores use different proportions of amino acids in their proteins, known as compositional heterogeneity. Computer algorithms that assume amino acid usage is the same universally throughout evolution may therefore place ctenophores incorrectly. In contrast, so far the only genome from a placozoan shows that they are equally closely related to jellyfish and corals (cnidarians) and bilaterians, which includes worms, insects and vertebrates.

To test whether this view of the first branches of the animal tree of life is correct, Laumer et al. included the genomes from several undescribed species of placozoans in a phylogenetic analysis. These analyses showed a relationship that had not previously been seen. The placozoans were the closest living relative to cnidarians. However, when looking at the level of genes rather than whole genomes, the more usual relationship of placozoans being equally related to cnidarians and bilaterians re-emerged. To resolve this conflict, Laumer et al. focused on the genes that had the least compositional heterogeneity. When doing this, the relationship appeared to be the newly identified one of placozoans being most closely related to cnidarians.

Researchers studying cnidarians often hope to find some clues as to how the complex features they seem to share with bilaterians originated. The findings of Laumer et al. may suggest that the ancestors of the placozoans did in fact have muscles, nerves and guts, but they lost these traits in favor of a simpler lifestyle. An alternative, but controversial possibility is that the ancestor of cnidarians and bilaterians was a simple organism like a placozoan, and the two evolved their complex traits independently. The findings show a complex picture of early animal evolution. Further study of placozoans may well clarify this picture.