Integrating Paleontological and Phylogenetic Approaches to Macroevolution
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
Vol. 47:189-213 (Volume publication date November 2016)
First published online as a Review in Advance on August 19, 2016
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-112414-054207
Gene Hunt 1 and Graham Slater 2
1 Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560; email: hunte@si.edu
2 Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637; email: gslater@uchicago.edu
Abstract
With proliferation of molecular phylogenies and advances in statistical modeling, phylogeneticists can now address macroevolutionary questions that had traditionally been the purview of paleontology. Interest has focused on three areas at the intersection of phylogenetic and paleontological research: time-scaling phylogenies, understanding trait evolution, and modeling species diversification. Fossil calibrations have long been crucial for scaling phylogenies to absolute time, but recent advances allow more equal integration of extinct taxa. Simulation and empirical studies have shown that fossil data can markedly improve inferences about trait evolution, especially for models with heterogeneous temporal dynamics and in clades for which the living forms are unrepresentative remnants of their larger clade. Recent years have also seen a productive cross-disciplinary conversation about the nature and uncertainties of inferring diversification dynamics. Challenges remain, but the present time represents a flowering of interest in integrating these two views on the history of life.
Keywords diversification, fossil record, molecular phylogeny, phylogenetic comparative methods, trait evolution
Subscription or payment needed/Requer assinatura ou pagamento:
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
