Morphological Phylogenetics in the Genomic Age

Evolutionary trees underpin virtually all of biology, and the wealth of new genomic data has enabled us to reconstruct them with increasing detail and confidence. While phenotypic (typically morphological) traits are becoming less important in reconstructing evolutionary trees, they still serve vita...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current biology 2015-10, Vol.25 (19), p.R922-R929
Main Authors: Lee, Michael S.Y., Palci, Alessandro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological Evolution
Fossils
Genomics - methods
Phenotype
Phylogeny
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Evolutionary trees underpin virtually all of biology, and the wealth of new genomic data has enabled us to reconstruct them with increasing detail and confidence. While phenotypic (typically morphological) traits are becoming less important in reconstructing evolutionary trees, they still serve vital and unique roles in phylogenetics, even for living taxa for which vast amounts of genetic information are available. Morphology remains a powerful independent source of evidence for testing molecular clades, and — through fossil phenotypes — the primary means for time-scaling phylogenies. Morphological phylogenetics is therefore vital for transforming undated molecular topologies into dated evolutionary trees. However, if morphology is to be employed to its full potential, biologists need to start scrutinising phenotypes in a more objective fashion, models of phenotypic evolution need to be improved, and approaches for analysing phenotypic traits and fossils together with genomic data need to be refined. Lee and Palci review how phenotypic traits and fossils remain essential for constructing the dated phylogenetic trees that underpin much of modern biology.
ISSN:0960-9822
1879-0445
DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2015.07.009