The Shape of Phylogenies Under Phase-Type Distributed Times to Speciation and Extinction.

ABSTRACT: Phylogenetic trees describe relationships between extant species, but beyond that their shape and their relative branch lengths can provide information on broader evolutionary processes of speciation and extinction. However, currently many of the most widely used macro-evolutionary models make predictions about the shapes of phylogenetic trees that differ considerably from what is observed in empirical phylogenies. Here, we propose a flexible and biologically plausible macroevolutionary model for phylogenetic trees where times to speciation or extinction events are drawn from a Coxian phase-type (PH) distribution. First, we show that different choices of parameters in our model lead to a range of tree balances as measured by Aldous' [Formula: see text] statistic. In particular, we demonstr

SUBMITTER: Soewongsono AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9474389 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature