Journal
EVOLUTION & DEVELOPMENT
Volume 6, Issue 4, Pages 275-281Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1525-142X.2004.04032.x
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Bryozoans, or moss animals, are small colonial organisms that possess a suspension-feeding apparatus called a lophophore. Traditionally, this phylum has been grouped with brachiopods and phoronids because of the feeding structure. Available molecular and morphological data refute this notion of a monophyletic Lophophorata. Alternative hypotheses place bryozoans either at the base of the Lophotrochozoa or basal to the Lophotrochozoa/Ecdysozoa split. Surprisingly, the only molecular data bearing on this issue are from the 18S nuclear ribosomal gene. Here we report the results of a Hox gene survey using degenerate polymerase chain reaction primers in a gymnolaemate bryozoan, Bugula turrita. Putative orthologs to both the Post2 and the Lox5 genes were found, suggesting that bryozoans are not a basal protostome group but closely allied to other lophotrochozoan taxa. We also found the first definitive evidence of two Deformed/Hox4 class genes in a nonvertebrate animal.
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