Molecular phylogeny of Conoidea: A case of applying 16S rRNA gene for high level phylogeny

Taxonomic classification of local specimens of venomous gastropods particularly turrids was recently initiated on shell morphology (Olivera 1999, 2002, 2004). Clade groupings within particular genera were advanced. There exists however, a need to validate this work with molecular data. The prevailing approach of using 16S rRNA as a gene makaer of choice (Monje et al. 1999) raise fundamental questions on the conventional taxonomic scheme presently employed for Neogastroposa particularly the relationship of toxoglossates to other members of the group specifically pointing out a possible star phylogeny (Espiritu et al. 2002). The argument against 16S rRNA as a gene marker of choice is that it could be too “fast” a gene to resolve higher level phylogeny (Tholleson 1999), that is, it is capable of accumulating mutations useful as marker for species identification but could over represent the genetic distance among organisms when used to establish family level phylogenetic relationships. Here we show the applicability of 16S rDNA to resolve the phylogeny of Conoidea. We show by molecular phylogeny analysis of a 540 bp segment of the 16S rDNA that the three major clades of Conidea namely, Turridae, Terebridae and Conidae are monophyletic