Relaxed molecular clocks for dating historical plant dispersal events

Abstract

Age estimation from molecular sequences has emerged as a powerful tool for inferring when a plant lineage arrived in a particular area. Knowing the tenure of lineages within a region is key to understanding the evolution of traits, the evolution of biotic interactions, and the evolution of floras. New analytical methods model change in substitution rates along individual branches of a phylogenetic tree by combining molecular data with time constraints, usually from fossils. These "relaxed clock" approaches can be applied to several gene regions that need not all have the same substitution rates, and they can also incorporate multiple simultaneous fossil calibrations. Since 1995, at least 100 plant biogeographic studies have used molecular-clock dating, and about a fifth has used relaxed clocks. Many of these report evidence of long-distance dispersal. Meta-analyses of studies from the same geographic region can identify directional biases because of prevailing wind or water currents and the relative position and size of landmasses.