Abstract
In the past two decades, evolutionary studies of reef corals have greatly advanced owing to the intriguing characteristics of corals, such as hybridization and synchronous mass spawning, and development of molecular techniques. These evolutionary works have mainly focused on the genus Acropora because of its dominance. It has the highest number of species and is a major member of the mass spawning event, which characteristics suggest its unusual evolutionary process called “reticulate evolution.” Although studies using other corals have been very limited, some have demonstrated obscure species boundaries between closely related species, implying hybridization in the present or past. Most of these studies used genetic analysis, because it is very useful for investigation of species and population relationships among and within regions and to infer phylogenetic relationships from the species level to higher taxonomic levels. For anyone wishing to study the evolution and taxonomy of corals, familiarity with these molecular works, even for nongenetic analysts, is essential. This review summarizes the evolutionary studies of reef corals using molecular analyses.
