Topology, divergence dates, and macroevolutionary inferences vary between different tip-dating approaches applied to fossil theropods (Dinosauria). Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Dated phylogenies of fossil taxa allow palaeobiologists to estimate the timing of major divergences and placement of extinct lineages, and to test macroevolutionary hypotheses. Recently developed Bayesian 'tip-dating' methods simultaneously infer and date the branching relationships among fossil taxa, and infer putative ancestral relationships. Using a previously published dataset for extinct theropod dinosaurs, we contrast the dated relationships inferred by several tip-dating approaches and evaluate potential downstream effects on phylogenetic comparative methods. We also compare tip-dating analyses to maximum-parsimony trees time-scaled via alternative a posteriori approaches including via the probabilistic cal3 method. Among tip-dating analyses, we find opposing but strongly supported relationships, despite similarity in inferred ancestors. Overall, tip-dating methods infer divergence dates often millions (or tens of millions) of years older than the earliest stratigraphic appearance of that clade. Model-comparison analyses of the pattern of body-size evolution found that the support for evolutionary mode can vary across and between tree samples from cal3 and tip-dating approaches. These differences suggest that model and software choice in dating analyses can have a substantial impact on the dated phylogenies obtained and broader evolutionary inferences.

published proceedings

  • Biol Lett

altmetric score

  • 13.85

author list (cited authors)

  • Bapst, D. W., Wright, A. M., Matzke, N. J., & Lloyd, G. T

citation count

  • 58

complete list of authors

  • Bapst, DW||Wright, AM||Matzke, NJ||Lloyd, GT

publication date

  • January 2016