Assessing the Goodness of Fit of Phylogenetic Comparative Methods: A Meta-Analysis and Simulation Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) have been applied widely in analyzing data from related species but their fit to data is rarely assessed.

Question

Can one determine whether any particular comparative method is typically more appropriate than others by examining comparative data sets?

Data

I conducted a meta-analysis of 122 phylogenetic data sets found by searching all papers in JEB, Blackwell Synergy and JSTOR published in 2002-2005 for the purpose of assessing the fit of PCMs. The number of species in these data sets ranged from 9 to 117.

Analysis method

I used the Akaike information criterion to compare PCMs, and then fit PCMs to bivariate data sets through REML analysis. Correlation estimates between two traits and bootstrapped confidence

SUBMITTER: Jhwueng DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3694968 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature