ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2017
Differences between hard and soft phylogenetic data.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Phylogenetic congruence, conflict and consilience between molecular and morphological data.BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Pooled it
- Toward a Comprehensive Anatomical Matrix for Crown Birds: Phylogenetic Insights from the Pectoral Girdle and Forelimb Skeleton.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Fossilization can mislead analyses of phenotypic disparity.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Molecular phylogenies map to biogeography better than morphological ones.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Evolution and dispersal of snakes across the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Craniodental and Postcranial Characters of Non-Avian Dinosauria Often Imply Different Trees.Systematic biology · 2020Article
- Conflict Resolution for Mesozoic Mammals: Reconciling Phylogenetic Incongruence Among Anatomical Regions.Frontiers in genetics · 2020Article
- Article
- Rapid morphological evolution in placental mammals post-dates the origin of the crown group.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Parsimony, not Bayesian analysis, recovers more stratigraphically congruent phylogenetic trees.Biology letters · 2018Article
- Differences between hard and soft phylogenetic data.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
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2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
When building the tree of life, variability of phylogenetic signal is often accounted for by partitioning gene sequences and testing for differences. The same considerations, however, are rarely applied to morphological data, potentially undermining its use in evolutionary contexts. Here, we apply partition heterogeneity tests to 59 animal datasets to demonstrate that significant differences exist between the phylogenetic signal conveyed by 'hard' and 'soft' characters (bones, teeth and shells versus myology, integument etc). Furthermore, the morphological partitions differ significantly in their consistency relative to independent molecular trees. The observed morphological differences correspond with missing data biases, and as such their existence presents a problem not only for phylogeny reconstruction, but also for interpretations of fossil data. Evolutionary inferences drawn from clades in which hard, readily fossilizable characters are relatively less consistent and different from other morphology (mammals, bivalves) may be less secure. More secure inferences might be drawn from the fossil record of clades that exhibit fewer differences, or exhibit more consistent hard characters (fishes, birds). In all cases, it will be necessary to consider the impact of missing data on empirical data, and the differences that exist between morphological modules.
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