mgu FY2011 Annual Report 3.1 fig1

Figure 1: Molecular phylogeny of corals. 94,200 aligned amino acid positions of proteins encoded by 422 genes were obtained from the sponge Amphimedon queenslandica, from the cnidarians A. digitifera, Nematostella vectensis and Hydra magnipapillata, and from the triploblasts Tribolium castaneum, Drosophila melanogaster, Branchiostoma floridae, Danio rerio and Homo sapiens. The sequences were analysed using maximum likelihood methods, with the plant Arabidopsis thaliacia and the choanoflagellate Monosiga brevicollis serving as outgroups. The scale bar represents 0.1 expected substitutions per site in the aligned regions. The topology was supported by 100% bootstrap value. Approximate divergent times of the occurrence of basal chordates and divergence of vertebrates lineages are shown. This analysis indicates a deeper divergence of Acropora and Nematostella, approximately 500 million years (Myr) ago.