Modeling body size evolution in Felidae under alternative phylogenetic hypotheses

José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho,João Carlos Nabout

doi:10.1590/s1415-47572009005000004

José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho, João Carlos Nabout

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/s1415-47572009005000004

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Abstract

The use of phylogenetic comparative methods in ecological research has advanced during the last twenty years, mainly due to accurate phylogenetic reconstructions based on molecular data and computational and statistical advances. We used phylogenetic correlograms and phylogenetic eigenvector regression (PVR) to model body size evolution in 35 worldwide Felidae (Mammalia, Carnivora) species using two alternative phylogenies and published body size data. The purpose was not to contrast the phylogenetic hypotheses but to evaluate how analyses of body size evolution patterns can be affected by the phylogeny used for comparative analyses (CA). Both phylogenies produced a strong phylogenetic pattern, with closely related species having similar body sizes and the similarity decreasing with increasing distances in time. The PVR explained 65% to 67% of body size variation and all Moran's I values for the PVR residuals were non-significant, indicating that both these models explained phylogenetic structures in trait variation. Even though our results did not suggest that any phylogeny can be used for CA with the same power, or that “good” phylogenies are unnecessary for the correct interpretation of the evolutionary dynamics of ecological, biogeographical, physiological or behavioral patterns, it does suggest that developments in CA can, and indeed should, proceed without waiting for perfect and fully resolved phylogenies.

Highlights

Phylogenetic comparative methods developed since the middle 1980’s are commonly applied in areas of biological research, such as ecology, physiology and behavior, to explain how phylogenetic patterns in the traits of species can be associated to adaptive evolution (Martins, 2000; Freckleton et al, 2002)
The correlograms based on the two phylogenies showed slightly different patterns, there was a general trend of positive autocorrelation in the first two distance classes, with a larger value in the second class due to the more recent time slices, coupled with a negative autocorrelation in the last distance class (Figure 2; Table 2) (Diniz-Filho and Tôrres, 2002)
The proportion of variation explained by the phylogeny obtained from phylogenetic eigenvector regression (PVR) is similar when based on the two phylogenies, despite the fact that the correlation between the first eigenvectors extracted from these matrices is relatively low (0.415)

Summary

Introduction

Phylogenetic comparative methods developed since the middle 1980’s are commonly applied in areas of biological research, such as ecology, physiology and behavior, to explain how phylogenetic patterns in the traits of species can be associated to adaptive evolution (Martins, 2000; Freckleton et al, 2002). It is well-known that species, or other taxonomic units, may not represent independent observations for statistical analyses such as regression and correlation (Felsenstein, 1985; Martins and Garland, 1991; Martins et al, 2002). More importantly for comparative analyses, there are techniques that combine phylogenies from different sources and based on different data types, such as morphology, molecular data or behavior, to generate complete, or nearly complete, trees for very large taxonomic groups (supertrees) (Bininda-Emonds, 2004)

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