Dear Xavier et al.
Happy New Year! May your 2004 be abundant with tunicates!
Thank you for alerting us all to your paper on Clavelina
invasions. I enjoyed reading it because you show elegantly the power
of using mitochondrial molecular data to distinguish different
populations of the same species of ascidians. A quickly evolving
gene such as the mitochondria is an excellent way to investigate
biological invasions and hopefully more studies of this type are
being carried out.
We are continuing our work on molecular phylogeny of
ascidians, concentrating mostly on 18S rDNA to distinguish between
different families, but using more divergent molecules to distinguish
species within families. The aplousobranchia are especially
difficult to place within the tunicates with certainty, due to the
long branch lengths that they have with 18S rDNA.
I am looking forward to hearing about your work with
Cystodytes spp. Colonial species tend to show plasticity in
morphology and spicule formation, so I am interested in what the
molecular analyses may show us. It is especially interesting to
compare the taxonomical characters to molecular data. In many cases,
we have found the taxonomy and molecular data are completely
congruent, but sometimes the differences are very interesting.
I am currently writing a review of Tunicate phylogeny and
evolution, so I would appreciate receiving recent papers that I may
not have seen yet that should be included.
Best regards,
Billie
>>Dear Gretchen & Lambert
>
>
>I wish you all a Happy Christmas and succesful 2004!!!!!!
>
>I'm sending a recent paper on ascidians. It has implications for invasions
>and colonisations, hope you will like it
>
>My student Susanna is just back from Guam where she has been doing
>palatability tests with Cystodytes spp. I will have her writing a report
>for the "work in progress" section of AN.
>
>AN is really useful and necessary for us. Please keep on assembling it.
>
>Best regards to Charley, Eddie and Ilsa
>
>Xavier
>
>
>Xavier Turon
>Dept. of Animal Biology (Invertebrates)
>Fac. of Biology
>Univ. of Barcelona
>645, Diagonal Ave
>08028 Barcelona
>
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>phone: 34-93-4021441
>fax: 34-93-4035740
>
>Attachment converted: Ivory Tower:clavelina.pdf (PDF /CARO) (0005F848)
--
"Happy holidays!"
Dr. Billie J. Swalla
Associate Professor
Box 351800
Biology Department
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-1800
Phone: 206-616-9367
Fax: 206-616-2011
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://faculty.washington.edu/bjswalla/
Check out our 2002 summer course at FHL
"Comparative Embryology of Invertebrates"
http://courses.washington.edu/emb2002/
Check out our 2001 summer course at FHL
"Evolution and Development of the Metazoans"
http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/people/khalanych/evodevo2001/index.html
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