Inferences from tip-calibrated phylogenies: a review and a practical guide.

ABSTRACT: Molecular dating of phylogenetic trees is a growing discipline using sequence data to co-estimate the timing of evolutionary events and rates of molecular evolution. All molecular-dating methods require converting genetic divergence between sequences into absolute time. Historically, this could only be achieved by associating externally derived dates obtained from fossil or biogeographical evidence to internal nodes of the tree. In some cases, notably for fast-evolving genomes such as viruses and some bacteria, the time span over which samples were collected may cover a significant proportion of the time since they last shared a common ancestor. This situation allows phylogenetic trees to be calibrated by associating sampling dates directly to the sequences representing the tips (terminal

SUBMITTER: Rieux A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4949988 | biostudies-literature | 2016 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature