Dear Billie

Thank you for your kind mail. I'm glad to hear that you liked the Clavelina
article. Your work has always been very useful to me.

We have a paper on the Cystodytes morphotypes
(morphology-spicules-genetics) submitted to Zoologica Scripta. I must send
a revised version but I feel there will be no problem with it, so I expect
to have it accepted in a short time. I will send a copy of the revised ms
to you if you like.

I am aware of the problems with the Aplousobranchiata. I have also explored
the possibilities of mtDNA within them, but I concentrated more in the
Family level arrangement than in the relationships between big ascidian
groups. I used seqs of 18 Aplousobranchiata plus some of the published COI
sequences of Thomas Stach work in MPE (2002). I had a dozen species outside
the Aplousobranchiata in the analysis. The Aplousobranchiata came up
monophyletic, though, and with Ciona as the earlier offshoot within them.

This study will need still some work before it can be accepted. The problem
is that I start my lecturing at the University just tomorrow. But I will
try to have it arranged in the following months. May be we will be still on
time for your revision work?

Best wishes and a Happy New Year


Xavier

At 07:08 30/12/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>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

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