Smithsonian researchers have discovered that bioluminescence in octocorals dates back 540 million years, challenging previous estimates and highlighting the trait’s evolutionary importance. This finding could lead to deeper understanding and improved conservation of these marine organisms. A magnificent coral, a deep-sea octocorals that are known to be bioluminescent.
But for Quattrini and lead author Danielle DeLeo, a museum research associate and former postdoctoral fellow, to eventually tackle the larger question of why bioluminescence evolved, they needed to know when the ability first appeared in animals.In search of the trait’s earliest origins, the researchers decided to peer back into the evolutionary history of the octocorals, an evolutionarily ancient and frequently bioluminescent group of animals that includes soft corals, sea fans and sea pens.
With the evolutionary tree dated and the branches that contained luminous species labeled, the team then used a series of statistical techniques to perform an analysis called ancestral state reconstruction. DeLeo and Quattrini said that the octocorals’ thousands of living representatives and relatively high incidence of bioluminescence suggests the trait has played a role in the group’s evolutionary success. While this further begs the question of what exactly octocorals are using bioluminescence for, the researchers said the fact that it has been retained for so long highlights how important this form of communication has become for their fitness and survival.
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