ABSTRACT
We explore the utility of stratigraphic range data in reconstructing phylogenetic trees of representative genera of rhynchonelliform brachiopod higher taxa. We assembled a matrix of 37 exemplar genera (approximately one per suborder) that represent the stratigraphically earliest and perhaps the most morphologically primitive members of each rhynchonelliform suborder. Four linguliform and craniiform exemplars were used as outgroups. Cladograms obtained nest, kutorginates within strophomenates, which nest within rhynchonellates; chileates and obolellates are basal to this clade. The two All Nodes Occupied Phylogeny (ANOP) analyses generate trees that are consistent with each other, and with the cladograms obtained initially, but they explicitly acknowledge the ‘ancestral’ role that nonmonophyletic higher taxa can play in reconstructing patterns of evolutionary relationships among rhynchonelliform brachiopods.
