RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Detecting patterns of species diversification in the presence of both rate shifts and mass extinctions
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 004572
DO 10.1101/004572
A1 Sacha Laurent
A1 Marc Robinson-Rechavi
A1 Nicolas Salamin
YR 2014
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/04/25/004572.abstract
AB Recent methodological advances are enabling better examination of speciation and extinction processes and patterns. A major open question is the origin of large discrepancies in species number between groups of the same age. Existing frameworks to model this diversity either focus on changes between lineages, neglecting global effects such as mass extinctions, or focus on changes over time which would affect all lineages. Yet it seems probable that both lineages differences and mass extinctions affect the same groups. Here we used simulations to test the performance of two widely used methods, under complex scenarios. We report good performances, although with a tendency to over-predict events when increasing the complexity of the scenario. Overall, we find that lineage shifts are better detected than mass extinctions. This work has significance for assessing the methods currently used for estimating changes in diversification using phylogenies and developing new tests.