Recent advances in scleractinian systematics and taxonomy have been achieved through the integration of molecular and morphological data, as well as rigorous analysis using phylogenetic methods. In this study, we continue in our pursuit of a phylogenetic

Background Molecular phylogenetic studies on scleractinian corals have shown that most taxa are not reflective of their evolutionary histories. Based principally on gross morphology, traditional taxonomy suffers from the lack of well-defined and homologous

Species identification for spawning corals relies heavily on morphology. Recent molecular phylogenetic approaches have demonstrated the limits of traditional coral taxonomy based solely on skeletal morphology. Merulinidae is considered a complex taxonomic