SMILE

Stochastic Models for the Inference of Life Evolution

Bibtex

@article{etienne_estimating_2014,
Author = {Etienne, Rampal S. and Morlon, Hélène and Lambert,
Amaury},
Title = {Estimating the duration of speciation from phylogenies},
Journal = {Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution},
Volume = {68},
Number = {8},
Pages = {2430--2440},
abstract = {Speciation is not instantaneous but takes time. The
protracted birth-death diversification model
incorporates this fact and predicts the often observed
slowdown of lineage accumulation toward the present.
The mathematical complexity of the protracted
speciation model has barred estimation of its
parameters until recently a method to compute the
likelihood of phylogenetic branching times under this
model was outlined (Lambert et al. ). Here, we
implement this method and study using simulated
phylogenies of extant species how well we can estimate
the model parameters (rate of initiation of speciation,
rate of extinction of incipient and good species, and
rate of completion of speciation) as well as the
duration of speciation, which is a combination of the
aforementioned parameters. We illustrate our approach
by applying it to a primate phylogeny. The simulations
show that phylogenies often do not contain enough
information to provide unbiased estimates of the
speciation-initiation rate and the extinction rate, but
the duration of speciation can be estimated without
much bias. The estimate of the duration of speciation
for the primate clade is consistent with literature
estimates. We conclude that phylogenies combined with
the protracted speciation model provide a promising way
to estimate the duration of speciation.},
doi = {10.1111/evo.12433},
issn = {1558-5646},
language = {ENG},
pmid = {24758256},
year = 2014
}