ORCID: 0000-0003-4919-8655© 2016 The Authors.

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. The file attached is the published version of the article

Natalie Cooper

R Core Team

Thomas Guillerme

Wilson DE

Biology Letters

English

PubMed

Analyses of living and fossil taxa are crucial for understanding biodiversity through time. The total evidence method allows living and fossil taxa to be combined in phylogenies, using molecular data for living taxa and morphological data for living and fossil taxa. With this method, substantial overlap of coded anatomical characters among living and fossil taxa is vital for accurately inferring topology. However, although molecular data for living species are widely available, scientists generating morphological data mainly focus on fossils. Therefore, there are fewer coded anatomical characters in living taxa, even in well-studied groups such as mammals. We investigated the number of coded anatomical characters available in phylogenetic matrices for living mammals and how these were phylogenetically distributed across orders. Eleven of 28 mammalian orders have less than 25% species with available characters; this has implications for the accurate placement of fossils, although the issue is less pronounced at higher taxonomic levels. In most orders, species with available characters are randomly distributed across the phylogeny, which may reduce the impact of the problem. We suggest that increased morphological data collection efforts for living taxa are needed to produce accurate total evidence phylogenies

Guillerme, T

Natalie Cooper, NC

Spiral - Imperial College Digital Repository

Assessment of available anatomical characters for linking living mammals to fossil taxa in phylogenetic analyses

Guillerme, Thomas

Cooper, Natalie

University of Queensland eSpace

ORCID: 0000-0003-4919-8655© 2016 The Authors.

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. The file attached is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor

Cooper, N

Natural History Museum Repository

A common tendency for phylogenetic overdispersion in mammalian assemblages.

A total-evidence approach to dating with fossils, applied to the earlyradiation of the Hymenoptera.

Ancient dates or accelerated rates? Morphological clocks and the antiquity of placental mammals.

Divergence time estimation using fossils as terminal taxa and the origins of Lissamphibia.

Diversityin time and space: wanted dead and alive.

Effects of missing data on topological inference using a total evidence approach.

Impacts of the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution and K–Pg extinction on mammal diversification.

Mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference,

morphobank: phylophenomics in the cloud.

Peter Wagner and one anonymous reviewer.References1. Slater GJ, Harmon LJ.

Phylogenetic evidence for a shift in the mode of mammalian body size evolution at the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary.

Phylogenies and community ecology.

Picante: R tools for integrating phylogenies and ecology.

Problematic character coding methods in morphology and their effects.

The oldest known primate skeleton and early haplorhine evolution.

The placental mammal ancestor and the post–K–Pg radiation of placentals.

Analyses of living and fossil taxa are crucial for understanding biodiversity through time. The total evidence method allows living and fossil taxa to be combined in phylogenies, using molecular data for living taxa and morphological data for living and fossil taxa. With this method, substantial overlap of coded anatomical characters among living and fossil taxa is vital for accurately inferring topology. However, although molecular data for living species are widely available, scientists generating morphological data mainly focus on fossils. Therefore, there are fewer coded anatomical characters in living taxa, even in well-studied groups such as mammals. We investigated the number of coded anatomical characters available in phylogenetic matrices for living mammals and how these were phylogenetically distributed across orders. Eleven of 28 mammalian orders have less than 25% species with available characters; this has implications for the accurate placement of fossils, although the issue is less pronounced at higher taxonomic levels. In most orders, species with available characters are randomly distributed across the phylogeny, which may reduce the impact of the problem. We suggest that increased morphological data collection efforts for living taxa are needed to produce accurate total evidence phylogenies.MatricesThis file contains the raw matrices analysed. For more informations on analysis them, please refer to:

https://github.com/TGuillerme/Missing_living_mammals/

For any queries, please email me at:

guillert@tcd.i

ZENODO

Data from: Assessment of available anatomical characters for linking living mammals to fossil taxa in phylogenetic analyses

Analyses of living and fossil taxa are crucial for understanding biodiversity through time. The total evidence method allows living and fossil taxa to be combined in phylogenies, using molecular data for living taxa and morphological data for living and fossil taxa. With this method, substantial overlap of coded anatomical characters among living and fossil taxa is vital for accurately inferring topology. However, although molecular data for living species are widely available, scientists generating morphological data mainly focus on fossils. Therefore, there are fewer coded anatomical characters in living taxa, even in well-studied groups such as mammals. We investigated the number of coded anatomical characters available in phylogenetic matrices for living mammals and how these were phylogenetically distributed across orders. Eleven of 28 mammalian orders have less than 25% species with available characters; this has implications for the accurate placement of fossils, although the issue is less pronounced at higher taxonomic levels. In most orders, species with available characters are randomly distributed across the phylogeny, which may reduce the impact of the problem. We suggest that increased morphological data collection efforts for living taxa are needed to produce accurate total evidence phylogenies.</jats:p

Crossref

Electronic Archiving System

Assessment of available anatomical characters for linking living mammals to fossil taxa in phylogenetic analyses

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions