Tardigrade Phylogenetic Systematics at the Family Level Using Morphological and Molecular Data

Abstract

<p>Tardigrade phylogenetic systematic analyses have been conducted using morphological and molecular data; however, incongruencies between results obtained independently with the data types have been found. This thesis contains new morphological and molecular phylogenetic systematic analyses of tardigrades at the family level, building on previous research. The first part involves morphological data, the second part involves molecular data, and the third part involves combined morphological and molecular data. The morphological data include 50 characters for 15 tardigrade families. The molecular data include updated 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA, and COI gene sequences, in two sets; the first set provides the most-extensive representation of tardigrade families and comprises 18S rRNA sequences; the second set provides the most-complete representation of molecular data per species, where available, and involves the concatenation of 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA, and COI gene sequences. Finally, the combined data involves a supermatrix containing morphological and molecular data. The analyses are used to test results from previous systematics research and to contribute more information to tardigrade systematics.</p>