Phylogenetic niche conservatism - common pitfalls and ways forward.

ABSTRACT: 1. The prevalence of phylogenetic niche conservatism (PNC) in nature is still a conflicting issue. Disagreement arises from confusion over its precise definition and the variety of approaches to measure its prevalence. Recent work highlighted that common measures of PNC strongly depend on the assumptions of the underlying model of niche evolution. However, this warning has not been well recognized in the applied literature and questionable approaches are still frequently applied. 2. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to the assumptions underlying commonly applied simple measures of PNC. We used a series of simulations to illustrate how misleading results can be if assumptions of niche evolution are violated, that the violation of assumptions is a common phenomenon and that testing

SUBMITTER: Munkemuller T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4558954 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature