ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
Ignoring stratigraphic age uncertainty leads to erroneous estimates of species divergence times under the fossilized birth-death process.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Evolutionary Models for the Diversification of Placental Mammals Across the KPg Boundary.Frontiers in genetics · 2019Pooled it
- Estimating Divergence Times and Diversification Rates with the Unresolved Fossilized Birth-Death Process.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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- Practical Guide and Review of Fossil Tip-Dating in Phylogenetics.Systematic biology · 2026Review
- Museum 'dark data' show variable impacts on deep-time biogeographic and evolutionary history.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Bayesian tip-dated timeline for diversification and major biogeographic events in Muroidea (Rodentia), the largest mammalian radiation.BMC biology · 2024Article
- The Fundamental Role of Character Coding in Bayesian Morphological Phylogenetics.Systematic biology · 2024Article
- Convergent Adaptation of True Crabs (Decapoda: Brachyura) to a Gradient of Terrestrial Environments.Systematic biology · 2024Article
- Bayesian Total-Evidence Dating Revisits Sloth Phylogeny and Biogeography: A Cautionary Tale on Morphological Clock Analyses.Systematic biology · 2024Article
- Origin and Early Evolution of Hydrocharitaceae and the Ancestral Role ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- The ClaDS rate-heterogeneous birth-death prior for full phylogenetic inference in BEAST2.Systematic biology · 2023Article
- Impacts of Taxon-Sampling Schemes on Bayesian Tip Dating Under the Fossilized Birth-Death Process.Systematic biology · 2023Article
- Estimating the Age of Poorly Dated Fossil Specimens and Deposits Using a Total-Evidence Approach and the Fossilized Birth-Death Process.Systematic biology · 2023Article
- The Occurrence Birth-Death Process for Combined-Evidence Analysis in Macroevolution and Epidemiology.Systematic biology · 2022Article
- Successive climate crises in the deep past drove the early evolution and radiation of reptiles.Science advances · 2022Article
- Article
- Inferring the Total-Evidence Timescale of Marattialean Fern Evolution in the Face of Model Sensitivity.Systematic biology · 2021Article
- An early burst in brachiopod evolution corresponding with significant climatic shifts during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
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5 authors.
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Abstract
Fossil information is essential for estimating species divergence times, and can be integrated into Bayesian phylogenetic inference using the fossilized birth-death (FBD) process. An important aspect of palaeontological data is the uncertainty surrounding specimen ages, which can be handled in different ways during inference. The most common approach is to fix fossil ages to a point estimate within the known age interval. Alternatively, age uncertainty can be incorporated by using priors, and fossil ages are then directly sampled as part of the inference. This study presents a comparison of alternative approaches for handling fossil age uncertainty in analysis using the FBD process. Based on simulations, we find that fixing fossil ages to the midpoint or a random point drawn from within the stratigraphic age range leads to biases in divergence time estimates, while sampling fossil ages leads to estimates that are similar to inferences that employ the correct ages of fossils. Second, we show a comparison using an empirical dataset of extant and fossil cetaceans, which confirms that different methods of handling fossil age uncertainty lead to large differences in estimated node ages. Stratigraphic age uncertainty should thus not be ignored in divergence time estimation and instead should be incorporated explicitly.
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