Origins of diverse feeding ecologies within Conus, a genus of venomous marine gastropods

Abstract

Specialized predators on polychaetes, fishes, hemichordates or other molluscs, members of the predominantly tropical gastropod genus Conus diversified rapidly during the Miocene to constitute the most species-rich modern marine genus. We used DNA sequence data from mitochondrial and nuclear loci of 76 Conus species to generate species-level phylogenetic hypotheses for this genus and then mapped known diets onto the phylogenies to elucidate the origins and evolutionary histories of different feeding specializations. The results indicate that dramatically new feeding modes arose only a few times, that the most derived feeding modes likely arose in the Miocene, and that much of the known diversity of Conus that was generated during Miocene radiations has survived to the present.