ArticleScience advances2021
Diversification dynamics of total-, stem-, and crown-groups are compatible with molecular clock estimates of divergence times.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Integrated analysis of fossils and molecular divergence time estimates a latest Jurassic origin of angiosperms.Nature plants · 2026Article
- A diverse Palaeoproterozoic microbial ecosystem implies early eukaryogenesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Ediacaran origin and Ediacaran-Cambrian diversification of Metazoa.Science advances · 2024Article
- The macro-eco-evolutionary interplay between dispersal, competition and landscape structure in generating biodiversity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- No phylogenetic evidence for angiosperm mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) boundary.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Animal survival strategies in Neoproterozoic ice worlds.Global change biology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Molecular evolutionary time scales are expected to predate the fossil evidence, but, particularly for major evolutionary radiations, they can imply extremely protracted stem lineages predating the origin of living clades, leading to claims of systematic overestimation of divergence times. We use macroevolutionary birth-death models to describe the range of total-group and crown-group ages expected under constant rates of speciation and extinction. We extend current predictions on origination times for crown- and total-groups, and extinction of stem-groups, demonstrating that there is broad variance in these predictions. Under constant rates of speciation and extinction, we show that the distribution of expected arthropod total-group ages is consistent with molecular clock estimates. The fossil record cannot be read literally, and our results preclude attempts to interpret the antiquity of clades based on the co-occurrence of stem- and crown-representatives.
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Registered trials
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