Clades of marine fishes exhibit many patterns of diversification, ranging from relatively constan... more Clades of marine fishes exhibit many patterns of diversification, ranging from relatively constant throughout time to rapid changes in the rates of speciation and extinction. The goatfishes (Syngnatharia: Mullidae) are a family of marine, reef associated fishes with a relatively recent origin, distributed globally in tropical and temperate waters. Despite their abundance and economic importance, the goatfishes remain one of the few coral reef families for which the species level relationships have not been examined using genomic techniques. Here we use phylogenomic analysis of ultra-conserved elements (UCE) and exon data to resolve a well-supported, time-calibrated phylogeny for 72 species of goatfishes, supporting a recent origin of the goatfishes at 21.9 million years ago. We used this framework to test hypotheses about the associations among body shape morphometrics, taxonomy, and phylogeny, as well as to explore relative diversification rates across the phylogeny. Body shape was...
The damselfishes (family Pomacentridae) inhabit near-shore communities in tropical and temperatur... more The damselfishes (family Pomacentridae) inhabit near-shore communities in tropical and temperature oceans as one of the major lineages in coral reef fish assemblages. Our understanding of their evolutionary ecology, morphology and function has often been advanced by increasingly detailed and accurate molecular phylogenies. Here we present the next stage of multi-locus, molecular phylogenetics for the group based on analysis of 12 nuclear and mitochondrial gene sequences from 345 of the 422 damselfishes. The resulting well-resolved phylogeny helps to address several important questions about higher-level damselfish relationships, their evolutionary history and patterns of divergence. A time-calibrated phylogenetic tree yields a root age for the family of 55.5 mya, refines the age of origin for a number of diverse genera, and shows that ecological changes during the Eocene-Oligocene transition provided opportunities for damselfish diversification. We explored the idea that body size e...
The Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and Sou... more The Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and South America. Similar to other delphinids, this species emits echolocation clicks, burst pulses, and whistles. Although whistling seems to play a major role in the social organisation of dolphins, there is a lack of knowledge about Guiana dolphin whistles outside of its populations in Brazil and Costa Rica. In this study, we describe the acoustic structure of Guiana dolphin whistles from the southern Gulf of Venezuela for the first time. We recorded the whistles using an omnidirectional hydrophone (CR1). For each whistle, we measured maximum frequency (kHz), minimum frequency (kHz), starting frequency (kHz), ending frequency (kHz), duration (s), and number of inflection points, using spectrograms created in SpectraLAB 4.32, Version 17. Whistles presented an average starting frequency of 10.58 kHz (SD = 2.49 kHz), a mean ending frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD = 2.60 kHz), an average minimum frequency of 10.31 kHz (SD = 2.33 kHz), a mean maximum frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD = 2.51 kHz), an average duration of 0.27 s (SD = 0.14 s), and a maximum of four inflection points (mode 0). This research provides new insights into the acoustic behaviour of the Guiana dolphin in the Gulf of Venezuela.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Guiana dolphin, Sotalia guianensis, is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and Sou... more The Guiana dolphin, Sotalia guianensis, is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and South America. Similar to other delphinids, this species emits echolocation clicks, burst pulses, and whistles. Although whistling seems to play a major role in the social organisation of dolphins, there is a lack of knowledge about Guiana dolphin whistles outside of populations in Brazil and Costa Rica. In this study, we describe the acoustic structure of Guiana dolphin whistles from the southern Gulf of Venezuela for the first time. We recorded the whistles using an omnidirectional hydrophone (CR1). For each whistle, we measured maximum frequency (kHz), minimum frequency (kHz), starting frequency (kHz), ending frequency (kHz), duration (s), and number of inflection points, using spectrograms created in SpectraLAB 4.32 software (v. 17). Whistles presented an average starting frequency of 10.58 kHz (SD=2.49 kHz), a mean ending frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD=2.60 kHz), an average minimum frequency of 10.31 kHz (SD=2.33 kHz), a mean maximum frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD=2.51 kHz), an average duration of 0.27 s (SD=0.14 s), and a maximum of 4 inflection points (mode 0). This research provides new insights into the acoustic behaviour of the Guiana dolphin in the Gulf of Venezuela.
Clades of marine fishes exhibit many patterns of diversification, ranging from relatively constan... more Clades of marine fishes exhibit many patterns of diversification, ranging from relatively constant throughout time to rapid changes in the rates of speciation and extinction. The goatfishes (Syngnatharia: Mullidae) are a family of marine, reef associated fishes with a relatively recent origin, distributed globally in tropical and temperate waters. Despite their abundance and economic importance, the goatfishes remain one of the few coral reef families for which the species level relationships have not been examined using genomic techniques. Here we use phylogenomic analysis of ultra-conserved elements (UCE) and exon data to resolve a well-supported, time-calibrated phylogeny for 72 species of goatfishes, supporting a recent origin of the goatfishes at 21.9 million years ago. We used this framework to test hypotheses about the associations among body shape morphometrics, taxonomy, and phylogeny, as well as to explore relative diversification rates across the phylogeny. Body shape was...
The damselfishes (family Pomacentridae) inhabit near-shore communities in tropical and temperatur... more The damselfishes (family Pomacentridae) inhabit near-shore communities in tropical and temperature oceans as one of the major lineages in coral reef fish assemblages. Our understanding of their evolutionary ecology, morphology and function has often been advanced by increasingly detailed and accurate molecular phylogenies. Here we present the next stage of multi-locus, molecular phylogenetics for the group based on analysis of 12 nuclear and mitochondrial gene sequences from 345 of the 422 damselfishes. The resulting well-resolved phylogeny helps to address several important questions about higher-level damselfish relationships, their evolutionary history and patterns of divergence. A time-calibrated phylogenetic tree yields a root age for the family of 55.5 mya, refines the age of origin for a number of diverse genera, and shows that ecological changes during the Eocene-Oligocene transition provided opportunities for damselfish diversification. We explored the idea that body size e...
The Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and Sou... more The Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and South America. Similar to other delphinids, this species emits echolocation clicks, burst pulses, and whistles. Although whistling seems to play a major role in the social organisation of dolphins, there is a lack of knowledge about Guiana dolphin whistles outside of its populations in Brazil and Costa Rica. In this study, we describe the acoustic structure of Guiana dolphin whistles from the southern Gulf of Venezuela for the first time. We recorded the whistles using an omnidirectional hydrophone (CR1). For each whistle, we measured maximum frequency (kHz), minimum frequency (kHz), starting frequency (kHz), ending frequency (kHz), duration (s), and number of inflection points, using spectrograms created in SpectraLAB 4.32, Version 17. Whistles presented an average starting frequency of 10.58 kHz (SD = 2.49 kHz), a mean ending frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD = 2.60 kHz), an average minimum frequency of 10.31 kHz (SD = 2.33 kHz), a mean maximum frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD = 2.51 kHz), an average duration of 0.27 s (SD = 0.14 s), and a maximum of four inflection points (mode 0). This research provides new insights into the acoustic behaviour of the Guiana dolphin in the Gulf of Venezuela.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Guiana dolphin, Sotalia guianensis, is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and Sou... more The Guiana dolphin, Sotalia guianensis, is widely distributed along the coasts of Central and South America. Similar to other delphinids, this species emits echolocation clicks, burst pulses, and whistles. Although whistling seems to play a major role in the social organisation of dolphins, there is a lack of knowledge about Guiana dolphin whistles outside of populations in Brazil and Costa Rica. In this study, we describe the acoustic structure of Guiana dolphin whistles from the southern Gulf of Venezuela for the first time. We recorded the whistles using an omnidirectional hydrophone (CR1). For each whistle, we measured maximum frequency (kHz), minimum frequency (kHz), starting frequency (kHz), ending frequency (kHz), duration (s), and number of inflection points, using spectrograms created in SpectraLAB 4.32 software (v. 17). Whistles presented an average starting frequency of 10.58 kHz (SD=2.49 kHz), a mean ending frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD=2.60 kHz), an average minimum frequency of 10.31 kHz (SD=2.33 kHz), a mean maximum frequency of 13.96 kHz (SD=2.51 kHz), an average duration of 0.27 s (SD=0.14 s), and a maximum of 4 inflection points (mode 0). This research provides new insights into the acoustic behaviour of the Guiana dolphin in the Gulf of Venezuela.
Uploads
Papers by Chloe M Nash