Reconstructing ancestral character states: a critical reappraisal.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
Using parsimony to reconstruct ancestral character states on a phylogenetic tree has become a popular method for testing ecological and evolutionary hypotheses. Despite its popularity, the assumptions and uncertainties of reconstructing the ancestral states of a single character have received less attention than the much less challenging endeavor of reconstructing phylogenetic trees from many characters. Recent research suggests that parsimony reconstructions are often sensitive to violations of the almost universal assumption of equal probabilities of gains and losses. In addition, maximum likelihood has been developed as an alternative to parsimony reconstruction, and has also revealed a surprising amount of uncertainty in ancestral reconstructions.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Cunningham, CW; Omland, KE; Oakley, TH
Published Date
- September 1998
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 13 / 9
Start / End Page
- 361 - 366
PubMed ID
- 21238344
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1872-8383
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0169-5347
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1016/s0169-5347(98)01382-2
Language
- eng