ArticleBMC evolutionary biology2011
A phylogeny and molecular barcodes for Caenorhabditis, with numerous new species from rotting fruits.
Article in BMC evolutionary biology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 234 papers.
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Who cites it
234 citing papers in PubMed, 398 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Population structure and punctuated genomic hyper-diversity in Caenorhabditis briggsae.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Worms About Town: a citizen science project discovers microsporidian parasites of nematodes through environmental sampling.Biology open · 2026Article
- Origins of Self-Fertility in ThreeBiology · 2026Review
- Caenorhabditis diversity on Pohnpei, Micronesia, provides evidence that the Elegans Supergroup has its roots in the Americas and diversified in the Pacific en route to Asia.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2026Article
- Differential Phoretic Vector Use Among SympatricEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Repeated mutation of a GT92 glycosyltransferase gene confers antiviral resistance in twobioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Global genomic diversity of the selfing nematodebioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The bacteria of a fig community.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Computational Analysis of Telomerase RNA Evolution inNon-coding RNA · 2026Article
- Caenorhabditis elegans as an experimental model for resilience-boosting microbiota interventions in nonmodel ectotherms.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- A novel, fig-associated microbe promotes reproductive success via variable life history mechanisms inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- TheiScience · 2025Article
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- Variation in inbreeding depression within and among Caenorhabditis species.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Recurrent evolution of selfishness from an essential tRNA synthetase in Caenorhabditis tropicalis.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Article
174 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a major laboratory model in biology. Only ten Caenorhabditis species were available in culture at the onset of this study. Many of them, like C. elegans, were mostly isolated from artificial compost heaps, and their more natural habitat was unknown.
resultsCaenorhabditis nematodes were found to be proliferating in rotten fruits, flowers and stems. By collecting a large worldwide set of such samples, 16 new Caenorhabditis species were discovered. We performed mating tests to establish biological species status and found some instances of semi-fertile or sterile hybrid progeny. We established barcodes for all species using ITS2 rDNA sequences. By obtaining sequence data for two rRNA and nine protein-coding genes, we determined the likely phylogenetic relationships among the 26 species in culture. The new species are part of two well-resolved sister clades that we call the Elegans super-group and the Drosophilae super-group. We further scored phenotypic characters such as reproductive mode, mating behavior and male tail morphology, and discuss their congruence with the phylogeny. A small space between rays 2 and 3 evolved once in the stem species of the Elegans super-group; a narrow fan and spiral copulation evolved once in the stem species of C. angaria, C. sp. 8 and C. sp. 12. Several other character changes occurred convergently. For example, hermaphroditism evolved three times independently in C. elegans, C. briggsae and C. sp. 11. Several species can co-occur in the same location or even the same fruit. At the global level, some species have a cosmopolitan distribution: C. briggsae is particularly widespread, while C. elegans and C. remanei are found mostly or exclusively in temperate regions, and C. brenneri and C. sp. 11 exclusively in tropical zones. Other species have limited distributions, for example C. sp. 5 appears to be restricted to China, C. sp. 7 to West Africa and C. sp. 8 to the Eastern United States.
conclusionsCaenorhabditis are "fruit worms", not soil nematodes. The 16 new species provide a resource and their phylogeny offers a framework for further studies into the evolution of genomic and phenotypic characters.
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