Integrative Taxonomy Does Not Support a Cosmopolitan Desmophyllum pertusum: Resurrecting D. californicum and Validating the Genus Desmophyllum
7 affiliations
- 1Department of Invertebrate Zoology National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Washington DC USA
- 2Eastern Ecological Science Center, Leetown Research Laboratory U.S. Geological Survey Kearneysville West Virginia USA
- 3University of Essex Oxford UK
- 4NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center Seattle Washington USA
- 5Department of Biological Sciences Lehigh University Bethlehem Pennsylvania USA
- 6Oceans Research Center Lehigh University Bethlehem Pennsylvania USA
- 7Department of Biology Temple University Philadelphia Pennsylvania USA
Abstract
Reef‐building corals are key contributors in marine ecosystems, from warm, shallow reefs to cold, deep‐water habitats worldwide. Desmophyllym pertusum (Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the most important habitat‐forming cold‐water corals and has long been considered a cosmopolitan species. Yet phylogenetic relationships within the genus, as well as its relatedness to the synonymized genus Lophelia (Milne Edwards & Haime, 1849), remain poorly understood and debated. Here, we use nuclear ultraconserved elements and exons, complete mitochondrial genomes, and single nucleotide polymorphism data to show that populations of D. pertusum in the eastern and central North Pacific Ocean are genetically differentiated from those in the western and eastern Atlantic Ocean. Our results support the previously proposed synonymy of genera Lophelia and Desmophyllum (Ehrenberg, 1834). Morphological features of specimens from the Pacific Ocean, particularly budding pattern and corallite size, match those of the previously synonymized D. californicum comb. nov., which we therefore reinstate. We also incorporated solitary Desmophyllum spp. lineages into phylogenomic analyses, including a multispecies coalescence model. Taken together, these integrative taxonomic results indicate the presence of multiple Desmophyllum species beyond those currently recognized as valid. Future studies could incorporate phylogenomic approaches to better delimit species boundaries and avoid grouping distinct coral species.
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BibTeX
@article{vaga2026integrative,
title = {{Integrative Taxonomy Does Not Support a Cosmopolitan Desmophyllum pertusum: Resurrecting D. californicum and Validating the Genus Desmophyllum}},
author = {Claudia F. Vaga and Alexis M. Weinnig and Stephen D. Cairns and Michelle L. Taylor and Meredith Everett and Santiago Herrera and Erik E. Cordes and Andrea M. Quattrini and Cheryl L. Morrison},
journal = {Ecology and evolution},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1002/ece3.74485},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13674452},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Integrative Taxonomy Does Not Support a Cosmopolitan Desmophyllum pertusum: Resurrecting D. californicum and Validating the Genus Desmophyllum
AU - Claudia F. Vaga
AU - Alexis M. Weinnig
AU - Stephen D. Cairns
AU - Michelle L. Taylor
AU - Meredith Everett
AU - Santiago Herrera
AU - Erik E. Cordes
AU - Andrea M. Quattrini
AU - Cheryl L. Morrison
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Ecology and evolution
DO - 10.1002/ece3.74485
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13674452
AB - Reef‐building corals are key contributors in marine ecosystems, from warm, shallow reefs to cold, deep‐water habitats worldwide. Desmophyllym pertusum (Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the most important habitat‐forming cold‐water corals and has long been considered a cosmopolitan species. Yet phylogenetic relationships within the genus, as well as its relatedness to the synonymized genus Lophelia (Milne Edwards & Haime, 1849), remain poorly understood and debated. Here, we use nuclear ultraconserved elements and exons, complete mitochondrial genomes, and single nucleotide polymorphism data to show that populations of D. pertusum in the eastern and central North Pacific Ocean are genetically differentiated from those in the western and eastern Atlantic Ocean. Our results support the previously proposed synonymy of genera Lophelia and Desmophyllum (Ehrenberg, 1834). Morphological features of specimens from the Pacific Ocean, particularly budding pattern and corallite size, match those of the previously synonymized D. californicum comb. nov., which we therefore reinstate. We also incorporated solitary Desmophyllum spp. lineages into phylogenomic analyses, including a multispecies coalescence model. Taken together, these integrative taxonomic results indicate the presence of multiple Desmophyllum species beyond those currently recognized as valid. Future studies could incorporate phylogenomic approaches to better delimit species boundaries and avoid grouping distinct coral species.
SN - 2045-7758
ER -