Abstract: The order Acipenseriformes includes 25 extant sturgeon species and two extant paddlefish species. Sturgeons and paddlefishes are considered “living fossils”; in fact, although acipenseriform fishes first appeared in the fossil record approximately 200Mya, they have seemingly not undergone much morphological change since that time. These“evolutionary relicts” display markedly disjunction distributions with a wide distribution in the northern hemisphere. Their unique benthic specializations and conserved morphology, their evolutionary age, the variation in their basic diadromous life history, and the large public interest due to their near extinction or critically endangered status, make sturgeons and paddleWshes interesting groups for molecular evolutionary studies.


附件下载：Zuogang Peng, Arne Ludwig, Dengqiang Wang, et al. Age and biogeography of major clades in sturgeons and paddlefish (Pisces: Acipenseriformes). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 2007, 42: 854-862. pdf