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Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species

Ancestral state reconstruction of discrete character traits is often vital when attempting to understand the origins and homology of traits in living species. The addition of fossils has been shown to alter our understanding of trait evolution in extant taxa, but researchers may avoid using fossils...

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Autor principal: Puttick, Mark N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5014033/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27484647
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0392
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author Puttick, Mark N.
author_facet Puttick, Mark N.
author_sort Puttick, Mark N.
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description Ancestral state reconstruction of discrete character traits is often vital when attempting to understand the origins and homology of traits in living species. The addition of fossils has been shown to alter our understanding of trait evolution in extant taxa, but researchers may avoid using fossils alongside extant species if only few are known, or if the designation of the trait of interest is uncertain. Here, I investigate the impacts of fossils and incorrectly coded fossils in the ancestral state reconstruction of discrete morphological characters under a likelihood model. Under simulated phylogenies and data, likelihood-based models are generally accurate when estimating ancestral node values. Analyses with combined fossil and extant data always outperform analyses with extant species alone, even when around one quarter of the fossil information is incorrect. These results are especially pronounced when model assumptions are violated, such as when there is a trend away from the root value. Fossil data are of particular importance when attempting to estimate the root node character state. Attempts should be made to include fossils in analysis of discrete traits under likelihood, even if there is uncertainty in the fossil trait data.
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spelling pubmed-50140332016-09-09 Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species Puttick, Mark N. Biol Lett Palaeontology Ancestral state reconstruction of discrete character traits is often vital when attempting to understand the origins and homology of traits in living species. The addition of fossils has been shown to alter our understanding of trait evolution in extant taxa, but researchers may avoid using fossils alongside extant species if only few are known, or if the designation of the trait of interest is uncertain. Here, I investigate the impacts of fossils and incorrectly coded fossils in the ancestral state reconstruction of discrete morphological characters under a likelihood model. Under simulated phylogenies and data, likelihood-based models are generally accurate when estimating ancestral node values. Analyses with combined fossil and extant data always outperform analyses with extant species alone, even when around one quarter of the fossil information is incorrect. These results are especially pronounced when model assumptions are violated, such as when there is a trend away from the root value. Fossil data are of particular importance when attempting to estimate the root node character state. Attempts should be made to include fossils in analysis of discrete traits under likelihood, even if there is uncertainty in the fossil trait data. The Royal Society 2016-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5014033/ /pubmed/27484647 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0392 Text en © 2016 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Palaeontology
Puttick, Mark N.
Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species
title Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species
title_full Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species
title_fullStr Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species
title_full_unstemmed Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species
title_short Partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species
title_sort partially incorrect fossil data augment analyses of discrete trait evolution in living species
topic Palaeontology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5014033/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27484647
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0392
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