Abstract
The burgeoning field of phylogenetic paleoecology (Lamsdell et al. 2017) represents a synthesis of the related but differently focused fields of macroecology (Brown 1995) and macroevolution (Stanley 1975). Through a combination of the data and methods of both disciplines, phylogenetic paleoecology leverages phylogenetic theory and quantitative paleoecology to explain the temporal and spatial variation in species diversity, distribution, and disparity. Phylogenetic paleoecology is ideally situated to elucidate many fundamental issues in evolutionary biology, including the generation of new phenotypes and occupation of previously unexploited environments; the nature of relationships among character change, ecology, and evolutionary rates; determinants of the geographic distribution of species and clades; and the underlying phylogenetic signal of ecological selectivity in extinctions and radiations. This is because phylogenetic paleoecology explicitly recognizes and incorporates the quasi-independent nature of evolutionary and ecological data as expressed in the dual biological hierarchies (Eldredge and Salthe 1984; Congreve et al. 2018; Fig. 1), incorporating both as covarying factors rather than focusing on one and treating the other as error within the dataset.
Highlights
As well as making use of ecological and phylogenetic data, phylogenetic paleoecology incorporates modern statistical methods from paleoecology and biogeographic studies (Legendre 1990; Croft et al 2018) along with phylogenetic comparative methods (Cornwell and Nakagawa [2017], which can be readily applied to paleontological data; Bapst 2014) to determine whether similarity in traits between species is due to close evolutionary relationships or selective processes
Only recently synthesized into a distinct research field, phylogenetic paleoecology owes its genesis to the advent of paleobiology
Many of the methodologies used in phylogenetic paleoecology parallel those used in biology, and a number of paleobiological studies have incorporated what we would recognize as a phylogenetic paleoecology approach
Summary
As well as making use of ecological and phylogenetic data, phylogenetic paleoecology incorporates modern statistical methods from paleoecology and biogeographic studies (Legendre 1990; Croft et al 2018) along with phylogenetic comparative methods (Cornwell and Nakagawa [2017], which can be readily applied to paleontological data; Bapst 2014) to determine whether similarity in traits between species is due to close evolutionary relationships or selective processes. Phylogenetic paleoecology has the potential to contribute to a diverse set of subdisciplines within paleobiology and evolutionary biology.
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