Morphological variation and its phylogenetic signal in marine colonial organisms: a study with the family Campanulariidae (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa)

Abstract

Intraspecific variation is the basis for evolutionary processes to occur, whether accompanied by genetic differentiation or not. This variation can be adaptive and contribute to lineage diversification above the species level, functioning as an important macroevolutionary mechanism. In the taxonomic level, characterizing the patterns of intra and interspecific variation is not simple, and it complicates the delimitation of species. The family Campanulariidae presents variable morphological characters from the intraspecific level to the suprageneric, being, therefore, an interesting model for studying morphological variation. Our study aims to evaluate the taxonomic levels in which the morphological variation in Campanulariidae is expressed as a phylogenetic signal, correlating this variation to lineages delimitation and testing the current taxonomy structure of the family. For this, the patterns obtained from morphometric (traditional and geometric) and molecular analyses will be correlated to the morphological variation present in successive taxonomic levels, and will be accompanied by evolutionary inferences of character state reconstruction. (AU)