PALEONTOLOGICAL DATA AND MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS

被引:42
作者
SMITH, AB
LITTLEWOOD, DTJ
机构
[1] Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, Cromwell Road
关键词
D O I
10.1017/S009483730001277X
中图分类号
X176 [生物多样性保护];
学科分类号
090705 ;
摘要
Molecular data are becoming an indispensable tool for the reconstruction of phylogenies. Fossil molecular data remain scarce, but have the potential to resolve patterns of deep branching and provide empirical tests of tree reconstruction techniques. A total evidence approach, combining and comparing complementary morphological, molecular and stratigraphical data from both recent and fossil taxa, is advocated as the most promising way forward because there are several well-established problems that can afflict the analysis of molecular sequence data sometimes resulting in spurious tree topologies. The integration of evidence allows us to: (1) choose suitable taxa for molecular phylogenetic analysis for the question at hand; (2) discriminate between conflicting hypotheses of taxonomic relationship and phylogeny; (3) evaluate procedures and assumptions underlying methods of building trees; and (4) estimate rates of molecular evolution in the geological past. Paleontology offers a set of independent data for comparison and corroboration of analyses and provides the only direct means of calibrating molecular trees, thus giving insight into rates of molecular evolution in the geological past.
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页码:259 / 273
页数:15
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