RECONSTRUCTING LABROID EVOLUTION WITH SINGLE-COPY NUCLEAR-DNA

Fifteen per cent of all living fishes are united in a single suborder (Labroidei) and display a dazzling array of behavioural and ecological traits. The labroids are considered monophyletic and members share a pharyngeal jaw apparatus (PJA) modified for crushing and processing pr ey. Outside of the explicitly functional PJA, there is no corroborativ e evidence for a monophyletic Labroidei. Here, ave report the first mo lecular phylogenetic analysis of the suborder. Contrary to morphology- based phylogenies, our single-copy nuclear DNA data do not support lab roid families as a natural group. Our data indicate that pharyngognath y has evolved independently among labroid families and that characters of the PJA are not reliable markers of perciform evolution. This work 'crushes' conventional views of fish phylogeny and should engender no vel concepts of piscine life history evolution.