Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-24-2009

Abstract

Although an increasing number of phyiogenetic data sets are incomplete, the effect of ambiguous data on phylogenetic accuracy is not well understood. We use 4-taxon simulations to study the effects of ambiguous data (i.e., missing characters or gaps) in maximum, likelihood (ML) and Bayesian frameworks. By introducing ambiguous data in a way that removes confounding factors, we provide the first clear understanding of 1 mechanism, by which ambiguous data can mislead phylogenetic analyses. We find that in both ML and Bayesian frameworks, among-site rate variation can interact with, ambiguous data to produce misleading estimates of topology and branch, lengths. Furthermore, within a Bayesian framework, priors on branch lengths and rate heterogeneity parameters can exacerbate the effects of ambiguous data, resulting in strongly misleading bipartition posterior probabilities. The magnitude and direction of the ambiguous data bias are a function of the number and taxonomie distribution of ambiguous characters, the strength of topological support, and. whether or not the model is correctly specified. The results of this study have major implications for all analyses that rely on accurate estimates of topology or branch lengths, including divergence time estimation, ancestral state reconstruction, tree-dependent comparative methods, rate variation analysis, phylogenetic hypothesis testing, and phylogeographic analysis. [Ambiguous characters; ambiguous data; Bayesian; bias; maximum, likelihood; missing data; model misspecification; phylogenetics; posterior probabilities; prior.] Copyright © Society of Systematic Biologists.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Systematic Biology

First Page

130

Last Page

145

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