Biogeography of goby lineages (Gobiiformes: Gobioidei): origin, invasions and extinction throughout the Cenozoic

Abstract

Aim To combine a time-calibrated phylogeny with distributional, fossil and geomorphological data to infer the patterns of lineage origins and biogeography among gobies.Location Global marine areas (Indo-West Pacific, Western Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Atlantic and Eastern Pacific) throughout the Cenozoic.Methods I inferred a molecular phylogeny using beast, simultaneously calibrating nodes for Gobiidae, Gobionellidae and their combined clade. I used that phylogeny, coupled with current range data, to reconstruct historical distributions with the R module BioGeoBEARS under both a dispersal, extinction and cladogenesis (DEC) model and an augmented model including founder effect speciation (DEC+J). I then compared model fits for placing the ancestral node of Gobiidae + Gobiidae at varying reef hotspots throughout the Cenozoic: the West Tethys (Mediterranean), Western Indian Ocean or Indo-West Pacific.Results Goby lineages arose over a 12-13 million year period in the late Eocene, followed by repeated invasions of the Eastern Pacific, Atlantic and Mediterranean from an ancestral Indo-West Pacific distribution. Optimization with DEC+J is preferred to DEC, but constraining the root of the phylogeny with a West Tethyan (Mediterranean) or Western Indian Ocean distribution does not result in significantly different model fits under DEC+J.Main conclusions In Gobiidae, several lineages migrated through the West Tethys to the Atlantic, followed by extinction in the Mediterranean. In contrast, lineages of Gobionellidae in the Mediterranean did not spread beyond the eastern North Atlantic. Gobionellidae invaded the Eastern Pacific by distinct routes in different lineages, either from the Caribbean through the open Isthmus of Panama or around the northern Pacific Rim. Eastern Pacific Gobiidae are younger and derived from tropical Atlantic clades. Although the reconstructed ancestral area of gobies is the Indo-West Pacific, fossils indicate that gobioids were present in the West Tethys region throughout the Oligocene and Miocene, including taxa that are not known from that area today.

The evolution of fishes and corals on reefs: form, function and interdependence

“…Indeed, it is in the Oligocene-Miocene that we see the origins and expansion of the fish and coral genera that dominate modern coral reef assemblages, in terms of both species richness and abundances (Figs 4, 6 and 7) (Ackerman & Bellwood, 2000;Veron, 2000;Bellwood & Hughes, 2001). For fishes this includes the damselfishes (Pomacentridae; Cooper, Smith & Westneat, 2009;Frédérich et al, 2013), wrasses (Labridae; Cowman & Bellwood, 2013a), cardinalfishes (Apogonidae; Mabuchi et al, 2014) and gobies (Gobiidae; Thacker & Roje, 2011;Thacker, 2015). These families are strikingly under-represented in the Paleocene-Eocene (Fig.…”

“…However, several diverse coral-associated fish groups exhibit higher than average rates of diversification in the Miocene (Cowman & Bellwood, 2011). This includes coral-dwelling damselfishes (Chromis) and cardinalfishes (Apogon) and coral-associated (and sometimes coral-feeding) butterflyfishes (Chaetodon; Bellwood et al, 2010;Cowman & Bellwood, 2011) and gobies (Thacker, 2015). Today, most of these taxa preferentially associate with Acropora.…”

“…Molecular evidence suggests that many of the genera of small fishes that dominate modern reefs arose and diversified strongly in the Miocene (Fig. 6) (Cowman & Bellwood, 2011;Near et al, 2013;Thacker, 2015). The functional characteristics of high-turnover reef dynamics, based on small fishes, thus appear to have been an innovation that first arose in the Miocene.…”

Otoliths in situ from Sarmatian (Middle Miocene) fishes of the Paratethys. Part III: tales from the cradle of the Ponto-Caspian gobies

“…The plesiomorphic state for extant Gobiidae is 10 abdominal vertebrae, although most of the North-eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean gobiids exhibit 11 elements (Miller 1981;Birdsong et al 1988;Simonovic 1996;McKay and Miller 1997). The Aphia lineage is currently regarded as a sister group to the Valenciennea lineage (Thacker 2015). Aphia minuta has typically 27 vertebrae (10 ?…”

“…It encompasses two principal lineages, the Ponto-Caspian gobies (Thacker and Roje 2011) (Benthophilus lineage of Neilson and Stepien 2009) and a branch of the sand gobies (Thacker and Roje 2011) (Pomatoschistus lineage of Agoretta et al 2013 andThacker 2015) primarily represented by the genera Knipowitschia and Economidichthys. Some species of the genera Neogobius and Proterorhinus are known to be highly competitive and invasive when being displaced into environments not normally reached from the Ponto-Caspian (Dillon and Stepien 2001;Jacobs and Hoedemakers 2013).…”