Lobopodian phylogeny reanalysed/Liu et al. reply

• Published in: Nature (London) 2011-08, Vol.476 (7359), p.E2
• Main Authors: Legg, David A, Ma, Xiaoya, Wolfe, Joanna M, Ortega-Hernández, Javier, Edgecombe, Gregory D, Sutton, Mark D, Liu, Jianni, Steiner, Michael, Dunlop, Jason A, Keupp, Helmut, Shu, Degan, Ou, Qiang, Han, Jian, Zhang, Zhifei, Zhang, Xingliang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Earth science; Earth sciences; Evolution; Phylogeny; Science; Trees
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687

From this phylogenetic position the authors tentatively inferred that arthropodization (sclerotization of limbs) may have preceded arthrodization (sclerotization of body elements) in arthropod evolution. Nature 476, doi:10.1038/nature10267 (2011); We welcome the reanalyses by Mounce and Wills1 and Legg et al.2 of our paper3, and although we do not fully concur with their conclusions we are pleased that Diania has reopened the debate about key stages in arthropod evolution.Weaccept that the position of this fossil remains sensitive to parameters of analysis and in the original publication we conceded that our best-supported tree-Diania as sistergroup to (Schinderhannes1Euarthropoda)-could be subject to change, and that the 'walking cactus' may have a more basal position within the overall framework of the arthropod stem-group. Jianni Liu1,2, Michael Steiner2, Jason A. Dunlop3, Helmut Keupp2, Degan Shu1,4, QiangOu4, JianHan1, Zhifei Zhang1 & Xingliang Zhang1 1Early Life Institute, State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi'an 710069, China. 2Department of Earth Science, Freie Universitat Berlin, D-12249 Berlin, Germany. e-mail: [e-mail] or [e-mail] 3MuseumfurNaturkunde, Leibniz Institute forResearchon Evolution and Biodiversity at theHumboldtUniversity Berlin, D-10115Berlin,Germany. 4School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China. 1.