Dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data

Abstract Information about the geological timeframe during which animals radiated into their major subclades is crucial to understanding early animal ecology and evolution. Unfortunately, the pre-Cambrian fossil record is sparse and its interpretation controversial. Relaxed molecular-clock methods p...

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Autores principales: Martin Dohrmann, Gert Wörheide
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Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2017
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:bde3b3bb6b554268b1267a5717691f8b2021-12-02T12:30:43ZDating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data10.1038/s41598-017-03791-w2045-2322https://doaj.org/article/bde3b3bb6b554268b1267a5717691f8b2017-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03791-whttps://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Information about the geological timeframe during which animals radiated into their major subclades is crucial to understanding early animal ecology and evolution. Unfortunately, the pre-Cambrian fossil record is sparse and its interpretation controversial. Relaxed molecular-clock methods provide an alternative means of estimating the timing of cladogenesis deep in the metazoan tree of life. So far, thorough molecular clock studies focusing specifically on Metazoa as a whole have been based on relatively small datasets or incomplete representation of the main non-bilaterian lineages (such as sponges and ctenophores), which are fundamental for understanding early metazoan evolution. Here, we use a previously published phylogenomic dataset that includes a fair sampling of all relevant groups to estimate the timing of early animal evolution with Bayesian relaxed-clock methods. According to our results, all non-bilaterian phyla, as well as total-group Bilateria, evolved in an ancient radiation during a geologically relatively short time span, before the onset of long-term global glaciations (“Snowball Earth”; ~720–635 Ma). Importantly, this result appears robust to alterations of a number of important analytical variables, such as models of among-lineage rate variation and sets of fossil calibrations used.Martin DohrmannGert WörheideNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-6 (2017)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Medicine
R
Science
Q
spellingShingle Medicine
R
Science
Q
Martin Dohrmann
Gert Wörheide
Dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data
description Abstract Information about the geological timeframe during which animals radiated into their major subclades is crucial to understanding early animal ecology and evolution. Unfortunately, the pre-Cambrian fossil record is sparse and its interpretation controversial. Relaxed molecular-clock methods provide an alternative means of estimating the timing of cladogenesis deep in the metazoan tree of life. So far, thorough molecular clock studies focusing specifically on Metazoa as a whole have been based on relatively small datasets or incomplete representation of the main non-bilaterian lineages (such as sponges and ctenophores), which are fundamental for understanding early metazoan evolution. Here, we use a previously published phylogenomic dataset that includes a fair sampling of all relevant groups to estimate the timing of early animal evolution with Bayesian relaxed-clock methods. According to our results, all non-bilaterian phyla, as well as total-group Bilateria, evolved in an ancient radiation during a geologically relatively short time span, before the onset of long-term global glaciations (“Snowball Earth”; ~720–635 Ma). Importantly, this result appears robust to alterations of a number of important analytical variables, such as models of among-lineage rate variation and sets of fossil calibrations used.
format article
author Martin Dohrmann
Gert Wörheide
author_facet Martin Dohrmann
Gert Wörheide
author_sort Martin Dohrmann
title Dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data
title_short Dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data
title_full Dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data
title_fullStr Dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data
title_full_unstemmed Dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data
title_sort dating early animal evolution using phylogenomic data
publisher Nature Portfolio
publishDate 2017
url https://doaj.org/article/bde3b3bb6b554268b1267a5717691f8b
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