Comparing the rates of speciation and extinction between phylogenetic trees.

ABSTRACT: Over the past decade or so it has become increasingly popular to use reconstructed evolutionary trees to investigate questions about the rates of speciation and extinction. Although the methodology of this field has grown substantially in its sophistication in recent years, here I will take a step back to present a very simple model that is designed to investigate the relatively straightforward question of whether the tempo of diversification (speciation and extinction) differs between two or more phylogenetic trees, without attempting to attribute a causal basis to this difference. It is a likelihood method, and I demonstrate that it generally shows type I error that is close to the nominal level. I also demonstrate that parameter estimates obtained with this approach are largely unbiased

SUBMITTER: Revell LJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6010886 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature