The Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor Does Not (Usually) Approximate the Date of Divergence.

ABSTRACT: With the advent of more sophisticated models and increase in computational power, an ever-growing amount of information can be extracted from DNA sequence data. In particular, recent advances have allowed researchers to estimate the date of historical events for a group of interest including time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA), dates of specific nodes in a phylogeny, and the date of divergence or speciation date. Here I use coalescent simulations and re-analyze an empirical dataset to illustrate the importance of taxon sampling, in particular, on correctly estimating such dates. I show that TMRCA of representatives of a single taxon is often not the same as divergence date due to issues such as incomplete lineage sorting. Of critical importance is when estimating divergence or spec

SUBMITTER: Pettengill JB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4537086 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature