The number of gene families specifically expanded in Montipora was much lower than the number specifically expanded in Acropora. Comparative genomic analyses revealed that the gene families restricted to Montipora are significantly more numerous than those of Acropora and Astreopora, but their functions are largely unknown.
We obtained genomic data for the three species of comparable high quality to other published coral genomes. efflorescens and Astreopora myriophthalma. We performed extensive comparative genomic analyses among members of the family Acroporidae ( Montipora, Acropora, and Astreopora ) to explore genomic novelties that might explain unique biological traits of Montipora using improved genome assemblies and gene predictions for M. Scleractinian corals of the genus Montipora (Anthozoa, Cnidaria) possess some unusual biological traits, such as vertical transmission of algal symbionts however, the genetic bases for those traits remain unknown. (h) Illustration of the gene duplication event table showing the location of the gene duplication events mapped to the species tree, the location in the gene tree, the percent retention of the duplicate genes in the sampled species, and the genes descended from the gene duplication event. The horizontal divisions within these show the orthologs for each individual species pair. (g) Illustration of the ortholog results table for the genes in each input species (four main boxes). (d) Species tree rooting (e) Gene tree rooting (f) Hybrid overlap + DLC analysis of rooted gene trees to infer orthologs and gene duplication events. (a) Orthogroup inference using the original OrthoFinder algorithm (an orthogroup is the set of genes descended from a single gene in the last common ancestor of all the species under consideration). MSA, multiple sequence alignment-based tree inference DLC, duplication-loss-coalescence. A dotted blue line connecting with a solid arrow indicates additional data that are used in order to carry out the transformation indicated by the solid arrow. Published algorithms are shown in italics and are followed by an asterisk. The method used for each step is shown by the arrow.