Phylogenetic relationships of the globally distributed freshwater prawn genusMacrobrachium(Crustacea: Decapoda: Palaemonidae): biogeography, taxonomy and the convergent evolution of abbreviated larval development

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Abstract
There has hitherto been little research into evolutionary and taxonomic relationships amongst species of the freshwater prawn genusMacrobrachiumBate across its global distribution. Previous work by the authors demonstrated that the endemic Australian species did not evolve from a single ancestral lineage. To examine whether other regionalMacrobrachiumfaunas also reflect this pattern of multiple origins, the phylogeny of 30Macrobrachiumspecies from Asia, Central/South America and Australia was inferred from mitochondrial 16S rRNA sequences. Phylogenetic relationships demonstrate that, despite some evidence for regional diversification, Australia, Asia and South America clearly containMacrobrachiumspecies that do not share a common ancestry, suggesting that large‐scale dispersal has been a major feature of the evolutionary history of the genus. The evolution of abbreviated larval development (ALD), associated with the transition from an estuarine into a purely freshwater lifecycle, was also mapped onto the phylogeny and was shown to be a relatively homoplasious trait and not taxonomically informative. Other taxonomic issues, as well as the evolutionary origins ofMacrobrachium, are also discussed.

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