Gonzalo Giribet

Harvard University | Harvard · Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Genome assemblies are growing at an exponential rate and have proved indispensable for studying evolution but effort has been biased toward vertebrates and arthropods with particular focus on insects. Onychophora or velvet worms are an ancient group of cryptic, soil dwelling worms noted for their unique mode of prey capture, biogeographic patterns,...

Baseline biodiversity data are key for ecological and evolutionary studies and are especially relevant for areas such as the Maldivian Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, which can act as a stepping-stone for the transport of widely distributed marine species. We surveyed the islands and reefs of the Faafu and Malé Atolls with snorkeling and scuba div...

Nautiloids are a charismatic group of marine molluscs best known for their rich fossil record, but today they are restricted to a handful of species in the family Nautilidae from around the Coral Triangle. Recent genetic work has shown a disconnect between traditional species, originally defined on shell characters, but now with new findings from g...

Opiliones (harvestmen) have come to be regarded as an abundant source of model groups for study of historical biogeography, due to their ancient age, poor dispersal capability, and high fidelity to biogeographic terranes. One of the least understood harvestman groups is the Paleotropical Assamiidae, one of the more diverse families of Opiliones. Du...

Pettalidae is a family of mite harvestmen that inhabits the former circum-Antarctic Gondwanan terranes, including southern South America, South Africa, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand. Australia is home to two pettalid genera, Austropurcellia, in northern New South Wales and Queensland, and Karripurcellia, in Western Australia, unt...

Donacidae is a commercially important family of heterodont bivalves and one of the few bivalve lineages that has successfully colonised brackish and fresh waters. However, to date, no phylogenetic hypothesis exists for this widely distributed group. Here we turn to molecular data from the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes and combine these with the...

Recent transcriptomic studies of myriapod phylogeny have been based on relatively small datasets with fewer than 40 myriapod terminals and variably supported or contradicted the traditional morphological groupings of Progoneata and Dignatha. Here we amassed a large dataset of 104 myriapod terminals, including multiple species for each of the four m...

Aim Networks of connected marine protected areas (MPAn) are recognized as the key area‐based management tool to preserve biodiversity, moderate exploitation of marine resources and increase ecological resilience to climate change. Although population genetic studies could greatly benefit connectivity assessments between MPAs, genetic data are rarel...

The 2022, 4th edition of Invertebrates, the only college textbook on the subject that is in full color, retains the popular aspects of previous editions, but is substantially shorter in length. Detailed classifications and taxonomic synopses within each phylum are provided. Introductory chapters introduce students to systematics and phylogenetics,...

Symbion americanus is a microscopic marine invertebrate in the phylum Cycliophora that lives as an ectocommensal on the mouthparts of the American lobster, Homarus americanus. Previous phylogeographic work on S. americanus identified three lineages corresponding to one described and two potential new species, along with evidence of sympatry. But th...

Deciphering the evolutionary relationships of Chelicerata (arachnids, horseshoe crabs, and allied taxa) has proven notoriously difficult, due to their ancient rapid radiation and the incidence of elevated evolutionary rates in several lineages. While conflicting hypotheses prevail in morphological and molecular datasets alike, the monophyly of Arac...

Triaenonychidae is a family of Opiliones with almost 500 described species distributed in the southern continents. Recent work has provided a solid phylogenetic foundation based on Sanger and ultraconserved element molecular sequence data that resulted in a global reorganisation of the family. In this study, we turn to the South American triaenonyc...

The scattered literature on schizomid brooding is reviewed and discussed in reference to the number of eggs, number and position of young as well as the brood chamber. In addition, novel brooding observations are provided for the Neotropical species Hansenochrus tobago (Rowland & Reddell, 1979), Dumitrescoella decui (Dumitresco, 1977), Piaroa sp. a...

Natural history collections are invaluable repositories of biological information that provide an unrivaled record of Earth's biodiversity. Museum genomics—genomics research using traditional museum and cryogenic collections and the infrastructure supporting these investigations—has particularly enhanced research in ecology and evolutionary biology...

en Ricinulei (hooded tick spiders or tick beetles), considered one of the smaller arachnid orders, is an ancient clade whose affinities are still debated. With three recognized genera, short-range endemism, and strict fidelity to the landmasses that have seen them evolve for hundreds of millions of years, the group has emerged as a novel system to...

Phylogenetic analyses may suffer from multiple sources of error leading to conflict between genes and methods of inference. The evolutionary history of the mollusc clade Vetigastropoda makes them susceptible to these conflicts, their higher level phylogeny remaining largely unresolved. Originating over 350 million years ago, vetigastropods were the...

Nervous system development has been intensely studied in insects (especially Drosophila melanogaster), providing detailed insights into the genetic regulatory network governing the formation and maintenance of the neural stem cells (neuroblasts) and the differentiation of their progeny. Despite notable advances over the last two decades, neurogenes...

Mimopidae is a monotypic family of scolopendromorph centipedes known only by its holotype until the recent rediscovery of Mimops orientalis from Qinling Mountain, China. Here we generated novel transcriptomic data for M. orientalis and analyzed them in conjunction with other scolopendromorph and centipede transcriptomes. We used a diversity of appr...

Onychophora (“velvet worms”) are charismatic soil invertebrates known for their status as a “living fossil”, their phylogenetic affiliation to arthropods, and their distinctive biogeographic patterns. However, several aspects of their internal phylogenetic relationships remain unresolved, limiting our understanding of the group’s evolutionary histo...

Deciphering the evolutionary relationships of Chelicerata (arachnids, horseshoe crabs, and allied taxa) has proven notoriously difficult, due to their ancient rapid radiation and the incidence of elevated evolutionary rates in several lineages. While conflicting hypotheses prevail in morphological and molecular datasets alike, the monophyly of Arac...

New Caledonia has an endemic opiliofauna with two named species of Triaenonychidae, 17 Troglosironidae and eight Zalmoxidae. The recent finding of Neopilionidae on Grande Terre was thus surprising, and required the formal description of a new genus, which we undertake here. Martensopsalis gen. nov. is characterized by a small unsclerotized body wit...

The phylogenetic relationships within the molluscan class Polyplacophora (chitons) have been studied using morphology, traditional Sanger markers and mitogenomics, but, to date, no analysis has been carried out using transcriptomic and genome-wide data. Here, we leverage the power of transcriptomes to investigate the chiton phylogeny to test curren...

Among the least studied clade of velvet worms (Onychophora) is a clade of Neotropical Peripatidae (=Neopatida). Neopatida has been traditionally divided into an Andicoles group and a Caraïbes group, which now correspond to Oroperipatus and the remaining genera, respectively. Panama is located in a unique position bridging the faunas of both clades...

Sampling impediments and paucity of suitable material for molecular analyses have precluded the study of speciation and radiation of deep-sea species in Antarctica. We analyzed barcodes together with genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms obtained from double digestion restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (ddRADseq) for species in the fa...

Kury A. B., Mendes A. C., Cardoso L., Kury M. S., Granado A. de A., Giribet G., Cruz-López J. A., Longhorn S. J. (2021). WCO: World Catalogue of Opiliones (version 2021-03-23). In: Catalogue of Life, et al. (2021). Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life, 2021-04-05. Digital resource at www.catalogueoflife.org. Species 2000: Naturalis, Leiden, the Ne...

Aim We explore the biogeographic history of the Gondwanan lineage Triaenonychidae, a dispersal‐limited arachnid taxon that underwent a recent taxonomic revision based on phylogenomic data. We explicitly test hypotheses related to a biogeographical pattern of ‘common vicariance, rare dispersal’, predicted for dispersal‐limited taxa. Location Contin...

The Opiliones superfamily Triaenonychoidea currently includes two families, the monogeneric New Zealand–endemic Synthetonychiidae Forster, 1954 and Triaenonychidae Sørensen, 1886, a diverse family distributed mostly throughout the temperate Gondwanan terranes, with ~110 genera and ~500 species and subspecies currently described. Traditionally, Tria...

Molluscs are the second most diverse animal phylum and heterobranch gastropods present ∼44,000 species. These comprise fascinating creatures with huge morphological and ecological disparity. Such great diversity comes with even larger phylogenetic uncertainty and many taxa have been largely neglected in molecular assessments. Genomic tools have pro...

The Cyphophthalmi genus Troglosiro (the only genus of the family Troglosironidae) is endemic to New Caledonia, representing one of the oldest lineages of this emerged part of Zealandia. Its species are short-range endemics, many known from single localities. Here we examined the phylogenetic relationships of Troglosironidae using standard Sanger-se...

The Opiliones family Neopilionidae is restricted to the terranes of the former temperate Gondwana: South America, Africa, Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. Despite decades of morphological study of this unique fauna, it has been difficult reconciling the classic species of the group (some described over a century ago) with recent cladistic...

This is minor version 1.2 of the WCO-Lite website, containing one more layer of this nomenclatural/taxonomic endeavor. Version 1.2 contains bibliographic references for taxa nomina (exhaustive up to suprageneric taxa) and features a new author in the project team.

The systematics of the gastropod clade Umbraculida, particularly the family Tylodinidae, has been a matter of debate in the Mediterranean Sea, with no comprehensive molecular assessment of its diversity until now. Several species and genera have been erected and synonymized in the course of the last two centuries and only two single species belongi...

Sexually dimorphic traits are widespread in animals, and include sex-specific weapons, ornamentation and, although less noticed, glands and associated structures. In arachnids, certain lineages of the order Opiliones exhibit diverse forms of dimorphism in the armature and length of appendages (common in Laniatores), as well as in the presence of se...

The Wynberg Cave System, located on the Cape Peninsula, represents one of the most significant sites of cave fauna in southern Africa. However, the continuous increase in cave visitation is severely impacting the system as evidenced by graffiti, the trampling and destruction of cave habitats and even a reduction in the sizes of bat colonies. In Oct...

Onychophora, or velvet worms, are a key group for understanding ecdysozoan evolution. It comprises two families: Peripatopsidae, largely of Austral distribution, and Peripatidae, which is circumtropical. The interrelationships between the members of Peripatidae present many taxonomic issues exacerbated in the radiation of the Neotropical species or...

High throughput sequencing and phylogenomic analyses focusing on relationships among spiders have both reinforced and upturned long‐standing hypotheses. Likewise, the evolution of spider webs—perhaps their most emblematic attribute—is being understood in new ways. With a matrix including 272 spider species and close arachnid relatives, we analyze a...

Gonyleptoidea, largely restricted to the Neotropics, constitutes the most diverse superfamily of Opiliones and includes the largest and flashiest representatives of this arachnid order. However, the relationships among its main lineages (families and superfamilies) and the timing of their origin are not sufficiently understood to explain how this t...

Genome-scale data sets are converging on robust, stable phylogenetic hypotheses for many lineages; however, some nodes have shown disagreement across classes of data. We use spiders (Araneae) as a system to identify the causes of incongruence in phylogenetic signal between three classes of data: exons (as in phylotranscriptomics), non-coding region...

Bryozoans are a diverse phylum of marine and freshwater colonial invertebrates containing approximately 6,300 described living species. Bryozoans grow by budding new physiologically connected colony members (zooids) from a founding individual that forms from a metamorphosed larva. In some species these zooids come in different shapes and sizes and...

Triaenonychidae Sørensen in L. Koch, 1886 is a large family of Opiliones with ~480 described species broadly distributed across temperate forests in the Southern Hemisphere. However, it remains poorly understood taxonomically, as no comprehensive phylogenetic work has ever been undertaken. In this study we capitalise on samples largely collected by...

Spinicaudata (spiny clam shrimp) is a taxon of Branchiopoda occurring since the Devonian and today it occurs nearly globally in temporary water bodies. We present the most species-rich phylogenetic analyses of this taxon based on four molecular loci: COI, 16S rRNA, EF1α and 28S rRNA. Our results support previous findings that Cyzicidae sensu lato i...

Cephalaspidea is an order of marine gastropods found worldwide, often in sandy or muddy habitats, which has a convoluted taxonomic history based on convergent or ill-defined morphological characters. The cephalaspidean shell—which can be external and robust, internal, or altogether absent in the adult—is of particular interest in this group, and a...

Background: Photosymbiotic associations between metazoan hosts and photosynthetic dinoflagellates are crucial to the trophic and structural integrity of many marine ecosystems, including coral reefs. Although extensive efforts have been devoted to study the short-term ecological interactions between coral hosts and their symbionts, longterm evoluti...

Molluscs are the second most diverse animal phylum and heterobranch gastropods present˜44,000 species. These comprise fascinating creatures with a huge morphological and ecological disparity. Such great diversity comes with even larger phyloge-netic uncertainty and many taxa have been largely neglected in molecular assessments. Genomic tools have p...

The genome of a second species of orthonectid, a small group of parasitic annelids that live in other invertebrates, is the smallest animal genome ever reported and the second smallest in number of genes. This drastic genome reduction has been achieved through massive gene loss and extreme compaction.

Sampling impediments and paucity of suitable material for molecular analyses have precluded the study of speciation and radiation of deep-sea species in Antarctic ecosystems. This knowledge may serve to establish the framework for evaluating future anthropogenic alterations, particularly in a highly susceptible region like Antarctica. Here, we anal...

In strict symbiotic associations, the genetic structure of the symbiont often mirrors that of its host, with interesting implications for population dynamics and phylogeography. An unresolved case of symbiotic specificity and phylogeographic consequence is the relationship between the marine triclad Bdelloura candida and its host, the American hors...

We explored the extent to which Gondwanan vicariance contributed to the circum‐Antarctic distribution of the mite harvestman family Pettalidae, a group of small, dispersal‐limited arachnids whose phylogeny has been poorly resolved, precluding rigorous biogeographic hypothesis testing. Continental landmasses of former temperate Gondwana (Chile, Sout...

Background Photosymbiotic associations between metazoan hosts and photosynthetic dinoflagellates are crucial to the trophic and structural integrity of many marine ecosystems, including coral reefs. Although extensive efforts have been devoted to study the short-term ecological interactions between coral hosts and their symbionts, long-term evoluti...

Background Photosymbiotic associations between metazoan hosts and photosynthetic dinoflagellates are crucial to the trophic and structural integrity of many marine ecosystems, including coral reefs. Although extensive efforts have been devoted to study the short-term ecological interactions between coral hosts and their symbionts, long-term evoluti...

Tardigrades are microscopic animals known to withstand unfavorable abiotic conditions. These animals are also constantly exposed to biotic stresses, including parasites and internal microbiomes. However, the tardigrade immune mechanisms against these biotic stresses are largely uncharacterized. Due to the contentious phylogenetic position of tardig...

The majority of Australian Spinicaudata Linder, 1945 inhabit the (semi)arid deserts of Australia’s lowlands. However, several closely related species of Paralimnadia Sars, 1896 inhabit small temporary habitats throughout the Great Dividing Range in eastern Australia. By combining analyses of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) with d...

Mite harvestmen of the family Neogoveidae have a tropical trans-Atlantic distribution with representatives in equatorial West Africa and the Neotropics, specifically in the south-east region of the USA and in northern South America, being conspicuously absent from Central America. We provide a comprehensive molecular phylogeny of the family includi...

Sexually dimorphic traits are widespread in animals, and include sex-specific weapons, ornamentation and, although less noticed, glands and associated structures. In arachnids, certain lineages of the order Opiliones exhibit diverse forms of dimorphism in the armature and length of appendages (common in Laniatores), as well as in the presence of se...

Mimicry is the phenotypic resemblance of one organism to another because the resemblance is favored by selection from a signal receiver who perceives the resemblance. We would expect mimics to resemble their models closely, yet the widespread existence of imperfect mimics confounds this expectation, and has led to a profusion of possible explanatio...

Since the publication of this manuscript, a number of minor errors have made themselves known, which do not, however, substantively alter our results or conclusions. During the construction of figure 5b, the terminal labels for Porifera and Ctenophora were erroneously switched. We here provide a corrected version of the figure with the proper label...

Although our inventory of Earth’s biodiversity remains incomplete, we still require analyses using the Tree of Life to understand evolutionary and ecological patterns. Because incomplete sampling may bias our inferences, we must evaluate how future additions of newly discovered species might impact analyses performed today. We describe an approach...

Background Photosymbiotic associations between metazoan hosts and photosynthetic dinoflagellates are crucial to the trophic and structural integrity of many marine ecosystems, including coral reefs. Although extensive efforts have been devoted to study the short-term ecological interactions between coral hosts and their symbionts, long-term evoluti...

Manahunca bielawskii Šilhavý, 1973, the type species of the genus Manahunca Šilhavý, 1973, is redescribed based on abundant material from the type locality, including new data on its morphological variability and penis morphology. A neotype for M. bielawskii is herein designated due to the unknown whereabouts of the original holotype. Manahunca sil...

Background: Photosymbiotic associations between metazoan hosts and photosynthetic dinoflagellates are crucial to the trophic and structural integrity of many marine ecosystems, including coral reefs. Although extensive efforts have been devoted to study the short-term ecological interactions between coral hosts and their symbionts, long-term evolut...

The transition from larva to adult is a critical step in the life history strategy of most marine animals. However, the genetic basis of this life history change remains poorly understood in many taxa, including most coral species. Recent evidence suggests that coral planula larvae undergo significant changes at the physiological and molecular leve...

Abalones, turban snails, top snails, keyhole limpets and slit shells are just some of the diverse marine Vetigastropoda. With major lineages having ancient divergences in the Paleozoic Era, basal nodes in the phylogeny have been largely unresolved. Here we present the first genomic-scale dataset focused on vetigastropods, including a comprehensive...

The monotypic family Trogloraptoridae was only recently described from caves and old‐growth forest of Oregon and California (Western USA). These enigmatic spiders are characterized by striking raptorial claws, and based on their spinneret morphology, a close relationship to dysderoid spiders, a large clade within Synspermiata, was suggested. Here,...

Natural history collections play a crucial role in biodiversity research and museum specimens are increasingly being incorporated into modern genetics‐based studies. Sequence capture methods have proven incredibly useful for phylogenomics, providing the additional ability to sequence historical museum specimens with highly degraded DNA, which until...

Proper biological interpretation of a phylogeny can sometimes hinge on the placement of key taxa-or fail when such key taxa are not sampled. In this light, we here present the first attempt to investigate (though not conclusively resolve) animal relationships using genome-scale data from all phyla. Results from the site-heterogeneous CAT + GTR mode...

We address some of the taxonomic and classification changes proposed by Kuntner et al. (in press) in a comparative study on the evolution of sexual size dimorphism in nephiline spiders. Their proposal to re-circumscribe araneids and to rank the subfamily Nephilinae is fundamentally flawed as it renders the family Araneidae paraphyletic. We discuss...

We discuss the fauna of New Caledonia in the context of the prolonged submergence of Grande Terre until its re‐emergence around 37 million years ago and whether the resulting fauna can be entirely explained by over‐water dispersal. The current literature discussing the predominant neoendemism in New Caledonia is reviewed, questioning some of the di...

Arthropods are the most diverse animal phylum, and their phylogenetic relationships have been debated for centuries. With the advent of molecular phylogenetics, arthropods were found to be monophyletic and placed within a clade of molting animals, the ecdysozoans, with nematodes and six other phyla. Molecular phylogenetics also provided a new frame...

Bloodfeeding requires several adaptations that allow the parasite to feed efficiently. Leeches and other hematophagous animals have developed different mechanisms to inhibit hemostasis, one of the main barriers imposed by their hosts. Limnobdella mexicana is a member of the leech family Praobdellidae, a family of host generalists known for their pr...

Antarctic shallow‐water invertebrates are exceptional candidates to study population genetics and evolution, because of their peculiar evolutionary history and adaptation to extreme habitats that expand and retreat with the ice sheets. Among them, sponges are one of the major components, yet population connectivity of none of their many Antarctic s...