ArticleSystematic biology2012
A total-evidence approach to dating with fossils, applied to the early radiation of the hymenoptera.
Article in Systematic biology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 270 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
270 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Phylogenetic congruence, conflict and consilience between molecular and morphological data.BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Pooled it
- Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary.Frontiers in genetics · 2019Pooled it
- Deep learning reveals ecological decoupling and rate heterogeneity in Hymenoptera wing evolution.Science advances · 2026Article
- Competing methods of divergence time estimation recover diverse evolutionary timescales.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2026Article
- The Limits of Bayesian Estimates of Divergence Times in Measurably Evolving Populations.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- A new Cretaceous family illuminates the early evolutionary history of True Sawflies (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinoidea).Cladistics : the international journal of the Willi Hennig Society · 2026Article
- Estimating Divergence Times and Diversification Rates with the Unresolved Fossilized Birth-Death Process.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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- On the origin of animals and placental mammals: a critique of literalist readings of the fossil record.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Fossil record biases skew inferences of mammal trait evolution.Nature communications · 2026Article
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- Revisiting the enigmatic Cheirolepidiaceae: origins, phylogenetic relationships, and a new whole-plant concept.Annals of botany · 2026Article
- Re-evaluating the phylogenetic relationships of zosterophylls with a comprehensively sampled dataset and a combination of traditional and new alternative methods.Annals of botany · 2026Article
- An Evolving View of Character Macroevolution.Systematic biology · 2026Review
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- Total-evidence phylogeny reveals recent crown group radiation and biogeographical history of hamsters.BMC biology · 2026Article
- Evolutionary Rate Incongruences in Squamates Reveal Contrasting Patterns of Evolutionary Novelties and Innovation.Systematic biology · 2026Article
- Rethinking therapsid phylogeny through Bayesian and cladistic approaches.Scientific reports · 2026Article
210 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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6 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Phylogenies are usually dated by calibrating interior nodes against the fossil record. This relies on indirect methods that, in the worst case, misrepresent the fossil information. Here, we contrast such node dating with an approach that includes fossils along with the extant taxa in a Bayesian total-evidence analysis. As a test case, we focus on the early radiation of the Hymenoptera, mostly documented by poorly preserved impression fossils that are difficult to place phylogenetically. Specifically, we compare node dating using nine calibration points derived from the fossil record with total-evidence dating based on 343 morphological characters scored for 45 fossil (4--20 complete) and 68 extant taxa. In both cases we use molecular data from seven markers (∼5 kb) for the extant taxa. Because it is difficult to model speciation, extinction, sampling, and fossil preservation realistically, we develop a simple uniform prior for clock trees with fossils, and we use relaxed clock models to accommodate rate variation across the tree. Despite considerable uncertainty in the placement of most fossils, we find that they contribute significantly to the estimation of divergence times in the total-evidence analysis. In particular, the posterior distributions on divergence times are less sensitive to prior assumptions and tend to be more precise than in node dating. The total-evidence analysis also shows that four of the seven Hymenoptera calibration points used in node dating are likely to be based on erroneous or doubtful assumptions about the fossil placement. With respect to the early radiation of Hymenoptera, our results suggest that the crown group dates back to the Carboniferous, ∼309 Ma (95% interval: 291--347 Ma), and diversified into major extant lineages much earlier than previously thought, well before the Triassic. [Bayesian inference; fossil dating; morphological evolution; relaxed clock; statistical phylogenetics.].
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