Molecular Phylogenetics
The inseparability of sampling and time and its influence on attempts to unify the molecular and fossil records
April 6, 2018Hopkins, M.J., D.W. Bapst, C. Simpson, R. C. M. Warnock, 2018. The inseparability of sampling and time and its influence on attempts to unify the molecular and fossil records. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.11270 [pdf]/papers/Hopkins-mol_fos.pdf) The two major approaches to studying macroevolution in deep time are the fossil record and reconstructed relationships among...
Simple Method for Estimating Informative Node Age Priors for the Fossil Calibration of Molecular Divergence Time Analyses
April 15, 2015Nowak, M. D., Smith, A. B., Simpson, C., and Zwickl, D. J. 2013. A Simple Method for Estimating Informative Node Age Priors for the Fossil Calibration of Molecular Divergence Time Analyses. PLoS ONE 8(6): e66245. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066245. pdf Molecular divergence time analyses often rely on the age of fossil lineages to...
Species selection and the macroevolution of coral photosymbiosis and coloniality
April 14, 2015Simpson, C. 2013. Species selection and the macroevolution of coral photosymbiosis and coloniality. Evolution 67(6): 1607-1621 pdf Differences in the relative diversification rates of species with variant traits are known as species selection. Species selection can produce a macroevolutionary change in the frequencies of traits by changing the relative number...
Species selection in the molecular age
April 10, 2015Simpson, C., Müller, J., 2012. Species selection in the molecular age, in From clone to bone: the synergy of morphological and molecular tools in paleobiology, Johannes Müller and Rob Asher, eds. Cambridge University Press. p. 116-134. pdf Everything biological varies. Without variation, evolution would not be possible. This is a...