Abstract Detail

Resolving the green branch of life: Current progress and future challenges

Moore, Brian R. [1], Donoghue, Michael J. [1].

Locating Diversification Rate Shifts in Supertrees.

Supertree estimation methods facilitate the synthesis of results obtained from disparate data types and may increase computational efficiency for the analysis of large-scale data sets. Accordingly, supertrees are likely to find increasing application in plant systematics. The sampling properties of supertrees may also enhance their capacity to inform a number of phylogeny-based inferences, including the study of differential diversification rates. The relatively large size and possibly more dense taxonomic sampling of supertrees have the potential to increase the statistical power and decrease the bias, respectively, of methods for studying diversification rates. However, supertree methods typically do not provide reliable branch-length estimates. These considerations motivate the development of methods that are robust to uncertainty regarding the timing of diversification events. We describe a set of explicitly model-based, likelihood methods that combine information on the topological distribution of species diversity to locate significant shifts in diversification rate. We present results of a simulation study that characterizes the statistical behavior of these methods, and apply them to an example from plants, demonstrating their ability to contend with relatively large, incompletely resolved trees. The methods have been implemented in the freely available program, SYMMETREE, which may be obtained at www.phylodiversity.net/brian.

1 - Yale University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, P.O. Box 208105, New Haven, Connecticut, 06520-8105, USA

Keywords:
adaptive radiation
diversification rate shifts
speciation and extinction
supertrees.

Presentation Type: Symposium
Session: 46-3
Location: Ballroom 3 (Cliff Lodge)
Date: Wednesday, August 4th, 2004
Time: 9:00 AM
Abstract ID:833