Estimating Ancestral States of Complex Characters: A Case Study on the Evolution of Feathers
Pierre Cockx,
Michael J. Benton,
Joseph N. Keating
Abstract:Feathers are a key novelty underpinning the evolutionary success of birds, yet the origin of feathers remains poorly understood. Debates about feather evolution hinge upon whether filamentous integument has evolved once or multiple time independently on the lineage leading to modern birds. These contradictory results stem from subjective methodological differences in statistical ancestral state estimates. Here we conduct a comprehensive comparison of ancestral state estimation methodologies applied to stem-gro… Show more
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