SMILE

Stochastic Models for the Inference of Life Evolution

Phylogenetic approaches for studying diversification

Morlon, H.

Ecology Letters

2014

Estimating rates of speciation and extinction, and understanding how and why they vary over evolutionary time, geographical space and species groups, is a key to understanding how ecological and evolutionary processes generate biological diversity. Such inferences will increasingly benefit from phylogenetic approaches given the ever-accelerating rates of genetic sequencing. In the last few years, models designed to understand diversification from phylogenetic data have advanced significantly. Here, I review these approaches and what they have revealed about diversification in the natural world. I focus on key distinctions between different models, and I clarify the conclusions that can be drawn from each model. I identify promising areas for future research. A major challenge ahead is to develop models that more explicitly take into account ecology, in particular the interaction of species with each other and with their environment. This will not only improve our understanding of diversification; it will also present a new perspective to the use of phylogenies in community ecology, the science of interaction networks and conservation biology, and might shift the current focus in ecology on equilibrium biodiversity theories to non-equilibrium theories recognising the crucial role of history.

Bibtex

@article{morlon_phylogenetic_2014,
Author = {Morlon, Hélène},
Title = {Phylogenetic approaches for studying diversification},
Journal = {Ecology Letters},
Volume = {17},
Number = {4},
Pages = {508--525},
abstract = {Estimating rates of speciation and extinction, and
understanding how and why they vary over evolutionary
time, geographical space and species groups, is a key
to understanding how ecological and evolutionary
processes generate biological diversity. Such
inferences will increasingly benefit from phylogenetic
approaches given the ever-accelerating rates of
genetic sequencing. In the last few years, models
designed to understand diversification from
phylogenetic data have advanced significantly. Here, I
review these approaches and what they have revealed
about diversification in the natural world. I focus on
key distinctions between different models, and I
clarify the conclusions that can be drawn from each
model. I identify promising areas for future research.
A major challenge ahead is to develop models that more
explicitly take into account ecology, in particular the
interaction of species with each other and with their
environment. This will not only improve our
understanding of diversification; it will also present
a new perspective to the use of phylogenies in
community ecology, the science of interaction networks
and conservation biology, and might shift the current
focus in ecology on equilibrium biodiversity theories
to non-equilibrium theories recognising the crucial
role of history.},
doi = {10.1111/ele.12251},
issn = {1461-0248},
language = {eng},
month = apr,
pmid = {24533923},
year = 2014
}

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