A phylogenetic approach to understand the evolution of reproduction in coleoid cephalopods

Macroevolutionary Trade-Offs and Trends in Life History Traits of Cephalopods Through a Comparative Phylogenetic Approach

“…Despite the strategies outlined above, some flexibility is expected due to the different lifestyles and geographic areas inhabited by cephalopods, where an important environmental component contributes to this observed variability in the evolution of life history traits (Rocha et al, 2001;Ibáñez et al, 2021). Indeed, it has been detected that ovulation patterns are correlated with environment (i.e., stable and unstable) (Ibáñez et al, 2021), hence, given our results here, it is possible that both EL and PF are also associated with the latter feature. Consistently, the effect of temperature over EL (and thus, over fecundity) has been evidenced at least for benthic octopods (Ibáñez et al, 2018).…”

“…In this comparative study, we evaluated the life history traits of cephalopods considering their phylogenetic relationships, as suggested by Felsenstein (1985). This approach has been scarcely used in comparative studies of cephalopods, and particularly, the assessment of phylogenetic signal has only been conducted in five publications (i.e., Ibáñez et al, 2018Ibáñez et al, , 2019Ibáñez et al, , 2021Anderson and Marian, 2020;Ponte et al, 2021). In this sense, our research is among the few studies correctly addressing trait comparisons for cephalopods, suggesting that further research should incorporate this approach in comparative biology of cephalopods.…”

“…Several studies suggest r and k strategies for cephalopod mollusks (e.g., Nigmatullin and Laptikhovsky, 1994;Nesis, 1996;Ibáñez et al, 2018), whereas others invoke a continuum of different strategies that covary with environmental gradients (Rocha et al, 2001). Despite the strategies outlined above, some flexibility is expected due to the different lifestyles and geographic areas inhabited by cephalopods, where an important environmental component contributes to this observed variability in the evolution of life history traits (Rocha et al, 2001;Ibáñez et al, 2021). Indeed, it has been detected that ovulation patterns are correlated with environment (i.e., stable and unstable) (Ibáñez et al, 2021), hence, given our results here, it is possible that both EL and PF are also associated with the latter feature.…”

“…Over 30 years ago, Felsenstein (1985) suggested that every study addressing comparative biology should consider the phylogenetic relationships of the group being evaluated, as most biological features are associated with the evolutionary history of living organisms. For this reason, several studies have shown the importance of including phylogenetic relationships in comparative studies of either physiological (Rezende and Diniz-Filho, 2012), reproductive (Ibáñez et al, 2018(Ibáñez et al, , 2019(Ibáñez et al, , 2021, or biogeographic traits (Hernández et al, 2013). In this context, comparative studies not including phylogeny violate data independency assumptions, being susceptible to spurious associations between traits (type I errors) or to mask true associations (type II errors) (Felsenstein, 1985;Rezende and Diniz-Filho, 2012).…”

“…This database was combined with a previously published molecular phylogeny that included 173 species (Lindgren et al, 2012). This published phylogeny was selected over other phylogenetic hypotheses (for example, Ibáñez et al, 2021), because it was constructed with the largest number of species, thus, enabling to combine the tree topology and life history traits (BL, EL, and PF). It is worth noting that other authors in the field (e.g., Marian, 2015;Ponte et al, 2021) have also employed the phylogenetic reconstruction published by Lindgren et al (2012) to evaluate macroevolutionary hypotheses of cephalopods according to other traits such as spermatophores and brains.…”