10.5061/DRYAD.866T1G1M5
Crouch, Nicholas
0000-0002-3504-8245
The University of Texas at Austin
Mason-Gamer, Roberta
University of Illinois at Chicago
Mass estimation of extinct taxa and phylogenetic hypothesis both influence
analyses of character evolution in a large clade of birds (Telluraves)
Dryad
dataset
2019
2019-11-25T00:00:00Z
2019-11-25T00:00:00Z
en
1409902 bytes
3
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Incorporating extinct taxa in phylogenetic comparative methods is rapidly
becoming invaluable in studies of character evolution. An increasing
number of studies have evaluated the effects of extinct taxa, and
different numbers of extinct taxa, on model selection and parameter
estimation. Body mass is a well-studied phenotype, but individual mass
estimates may vary dramatically depending on the particular measurement
used. Here, we perform an analysis of body mass evolution in a large clade
of principally arboreal birds, incorporating 76 extinct species. We
evaluate how different methods for estimating body mass of extinct taxa,
and different phylogenetic hypotheses, affect our understanding of the
rate and pattern of body mass evolution. Our results show that model
selection can vary dramatically depending on the phenotypic and
phylogenetic hypothesis used in the reconstruction. Even small changes in
phenotype estimates can lead to different model selection and, as a
result, affect the inferred evolutionary history. The best fit models
support an increase in the rate of evolution following the K-Pg boundary,
with variation accumulating linearly through the Cenozoic. These results
provide additional insight into the application of comparative models of
evolution, as well as the evolutionary history of one of the most
spectacular vertebrate radiations.