project details
The Cassiopea Global Phylogeny Project
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This project aims to resolve long-standing phylogenetic and taxonomic uncertainty in the upside-down jellyfish genus Cassiopea by generating the first global, genome-scale phylogenomic framework for the group. Although Cassiopea has emerged as a key model system for studying cnidarian–algal symbiosis, regeneration, and invasion biology, its utility is constrained by unresolved species boundaries, cryptic diversity, and inconsistent species identification across regions. Morphologically similar species (e.g., Cassiopea xamachana and C. andromeda) are frequently misidentified, and previous molecular studies relying on short mitochondrial barcodes lack sufficient resolution to disentangle evolutionary relationships.
To address these limitations, this project applies low-coverage whole-genome sequencing to a globally sampled collection of Cassiopea specimens, strategically targeting geographic regions and morphological variants that are underrepresented or unresolved in existing datasets. This approach generates orders of magnitude more genetic information than traditional barcode-based studies, enabling recovery of complete mitochondrial genomes and informative nuclear loci suitable for phylogenomic inference and species delimitation. Preliminary analyses using complete mitochondrial genomes (~15,957 bp) already demonstrate substantially improved resolution compared to earlier marker-based phylogenies.
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