Abstract
Phylogenetic reconstructions are sensitive to the influence of ontogeny on morphology. Here, we use foetal/neonatal specimens of known species of living baleen whales (Cetacea: Mysticeti) to show how juvenile morphology of extant species affects phylogenetic placement of the species. In one clade (sei whale, Balaenopteridae), the juvenile is distant from the usual phylogenetic position of adults, but in the other clade (pygmy right whale, Cetotheriidae), the juvenile is close to the adult. Different heterochronic processes at work in the studied species have different influences on juvenile morphology and on phylogenetic placement. This study helps to understand the relationship between evolutionary processes and phylogenetic patterns in baleen whale evolution and, more in general, between phylogeny and ontogeny; likewise, this study provides a proxy how to interpret the phylogeny when fossils that are immature individuals are included. Juvenile individuals in the peramorphic acceleration clades would produce misleading phylogenies, whereas juvenile individuals in the paedomorphic neoteny clades should still provide reliable phylogenetic signals.
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Acknowledgments
For access to collections and allowing photography during Tsai’s and/or Fordyce’s visits, we thank Tadasu Yamada, Naoki Kohno, Yuko Tajima (National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan), Catherine Kemper, David Stemmer, Neville Pledge, Mary-Anne Binnie (South Australian Museum, Adelaide, Australia), James Mead, Charles Potter, John Ososky, Nicholas Pyenson, David Bohaska (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA), Jim Dines, David Janiger (Natural History Museum, of Los Angeles County, USA), Anton van Helden (National Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand), and Erich Fitzgerald, Karen Roberts (Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Australia). We thank Gabriel Aguirre, Felix Marx, and Erich Fitzgerald for the review and comments; Robert Boessenecker and Yoshihiro Tanaka for the discussion. We thank Olivier Lambert, Erich Fitzgerald, and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments. James Mead (Washington DC), Erich Fitzgerald, Karen Roberts (Melbourne), and Felix Marx, Ikerne Aguirre, Aiko Fukumoto (Japan) kindly accommodated Tsai during various visits. This study is part of Tsai’s Ph.D. thesis supported by the University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship.
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Communicated by: Sven Thatje
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Tsai, CH., Fordyce, R.E. Juvenile morphology in baleen whale phylogeny. Naturwissenschaften 101, 765–769 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1216-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-014-1216-9