Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:14:27.443Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Independent Contrasts: Phylogeny’s Influence on Phenotypes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2019

Philip D. Gingerich
Philip D. Gingerich
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

A realistic evolutionary model must match the generation-to-generation time scale being modeled and employ rates that are representative on this time scale. Time in a Brownian diffusion evolutionary model is time in generations, a requirement often overlooked or ignored. Forward-modeling of Brownian diffusion shows that the time span of phylogeny’s influence on body weight in mammalian carnivores and ungulates lasts no more than about 10,000 generations, or some 57,000 years, less than one tenth of one percent of the combined group’s evolutionary history. Statistical dependence on phylogeny does not extend automatically to any or all characteristics of interest, and dependence on phylogeny may never last long for the morphological and life history traits we most often study in comparative biology.
Type
Chapter
Information
Rates of Evolution
A Quantitative Synthesis
 , pp. 312 - 324
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×