Indexed in

License and Use

Altmetrics

Analysis of institutional authors

Gabaldon, ToniCorresponding Author

Share

Abstract

Establishing the timing of past evolutionary events is a fundamental task in the reconstruction of the history of life. State-of-the-art molecular dating methods generally involve the reconstruction of a species tree from conserved, vertically evolving genes and the assumption of a molecular clock calibrated with the fossil record. Although this approach is extremely useful, its use is limited to speciation events and does not account for genes following different evolutionary paths. Recently, an alternative methodology for the relative dating of evolutionary events has been proposed that considers the distribution of branch lengths across sets of gene trees. Here, we validate this methodology by comparing the relative age estimates with a fossil-calibrated phylogeny and propose a model-based formalisation using a Bayesian framework. Our analyses revealed that the normalisation of the distances of interest with the branch lengths of a reference clade present across the set of gene trees results in narrower distributions, allowing the correct inference of the relative ordering of evolutionary events. We show that distributions of normalised lengths can be modelled using gamma or lognormal distributions and demonstrate that inference of the posterior distribution of the mode allows accurate relative age estimation, as assessed by a strong correlation with the molecular clock-dated tree. Establir el moment en qu & egrave; han passat esdeveniments evolutius & eacute;s una tasca fonamental per a la reconstrucci & oacute; de la hist & ograve;ria de la vida. El m & egrave;todes de dataci & oacute; molecular actuals requereixen la reconstrucci & oacute; d'un arbre d'esp & egrave;cies a partir de gens heretats verticalment i conservats, i l'assumpci & oacute; d'un rellotge molecular que es calibra amb el registre f & ograve;ssil. Tot i que aquesta estrat & egrave;gia & eacute;s extremadament & uacute;til, no t & eacute; en compte els diferents camins evolutius que poden tindre altres gens. Una nova metodologia per a la dataci & oacute; relativa d'esdeveniments evolutius s'ha proposat recentment considerant la distribuci & oacute; de les llargades de branca d'arbres de gens En aquest article validem aquesta metodologia comparant-la amb una filog & egrave;nia calibrada amb f & ograve;ssils i proposem una modelitzaci & oacute; emprant el marc bayesi & agrave;. Les nostres an & agrave;lisis mostren que la normalitzaci & oacute; de les dist & agrave;ncies mesurades a un arbre de gens basada en un clade de refer & egrave;ncia produeix distribucions menys disperses, permetent aix & iacute; la correcta ordenaci & oacute; d'esdeveniments evolutius. Mostrem que aquestes dist & agrave;ncies normalitzades les podem modelitzar emprant les distribucions gamma i lognormal, i demostrem que la infer & egrave;ncia de la distribuci & oacute; posterior de la moda permet l'estimaci & oacute; acurada de l'edat relativa, mostrant una forta correlaci & oacute; amb l'arbre datat amb rellotge molecular.