Estimating Age-Dependent Extinction: Contrasting Evidence from Fossils and Phylogenies.

ABSTRACT: The estimation of diversification rates is one of the most vividly debated topics in modern systematics, with considerable controversy surrounding the power of phylogenetic and fossil-based approaches in estimating extinction. Van Valen's seminal work from 1973 proposed the "Law of constant extinction," which states that the probability of extinction of taxa is not dependent on their age. This assumption of age-independent extinction has prevailed for decades with its assessment based on survivorship curves, which, however, do not directly account for the incompleteness of the fossil record, and have rarely been applied at the species level. Here, we present a Bayesian framework to estimate extinction rates from the fossil record accounting for age-dependent extinction (ADE). Our approach,

SUBMITTER: Hagen O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5920349 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature