Sistemática e Evolução - Pôsteres - 29/11/2023 - 15:30 h às 16:30 h

Ceriantharia stands as a prominent group within anthozoans, comprising 54 currently valid species. Certain members of this clade exhibit both planktonic and benthic life cycles. While its exact evolutionary relationships remain subject to debate, there is a general consensus that Ceriantharia represents one of the earliest branches among anthozoans. Taking into account nuclear genomic knowledge, there is a lack of general information about them. This project sequenced general DNA extractions using  Illumina (short reads,  paired-end strategy) from five cerianthid species of different genera representing main phylogenetic clades. From these datasets, we described and analyzed general genome traits as genome sizes and their basic repetitive content. Our basic results present genome sizes around 500 megabases and repetitive content of approximately 35%, even for species representing clades with cladogenic relationships related to more than 400 million years. When compared to proximal clades as Zoantharia, our initial results indicate a genomic stasis condition according to these genomic traits. Subsequent studies will describe the repeatome content in bigger detail, highlighting additional trends in Ceriantharia as well as the Anthozoa genome evolution.