A standardized effect size for evaluating and comparing the strength of phylogenetic signal

Macroevolutionary studies frequently characterize the phylogenetic signal in phenotypes; however, analytical tools for comparing strength of that across traits remain largely underdeveloped. We developed a non-parametric, permutation test log-likelihood an evolutionary model, plus standardized statistic, , from this test, which can be considered effect size. This statistic used two-sample tests to compare multiple traits. performed simulation experiments revealed had linear association with Pagel's could predicted by tree size, quickly interpreted as hypothesis based on standard normal distribution. additionally found greater statistical power detecting than parametric likelihood ratio tests, especially small trees. The framework we present extends comparative methods toolkit, allowing comparison Future also consider different models, light null processes.