Tropical Refuges with Exceptionally High Phylogenetic Diversity Reveal Contrasting Phylogenetic Structures

Large-scale phylogenetic analyses reveal the causes of high tropical amphibian diversity.

Many groups show higher species richness in tropical regions but the underlying causes remain unclear. Despite many competing hypotheses to explain latitudinal diversity gradients, only three processes can directly change species richness across regions: speciation, extinction and dispersal. These processes can be addressed most powerfully using large-scale phylogenetic approaches, but most pre...

Phylogenetic relationships within Aglaopheniidae (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) reveal unexpected generic diversity

Phylogenetic Cascades and the Origins of Tropical Diversity

For organisms involved in specialized ecological interactions, the potential exists to have congruent evolutionary histories, such that diversification within one lineage of organisms parallels diversification within another. This model of shared evolutionary history has most often been explored in a bitrophic context, particularly with plants and specialized herbivorous insects, though also wi...

Phylogenetic Diversity within Seconds

—We consider a (phylogenetic) tree with n labeled leaves, the taxa, and a length for each branch in the tree. For any subset of k taxa, the phylogenetic diversity is defined as the sum of the branch-lengths of the minimal subtree connecting the taxa in the subset. We introduce two time-efficient algorithms (greedy and pruning) to compute a subset of size k with maximal phylogenetic diversity in...

Phylogenetic diversity within seconds.

We consider a (phylogenetic) tree with n labeled leaves, the taxa, and a length for each branch in the tree. For any subset of k taxa, the phylogenetic diversity is defined as the sum of the branch-lengths of the minimal subtree connecting the taxa in the subset. We introduce two time-efficient algorithms (greedy and pruning) to compute a subset of size k with maximal phylogenetic diversity in ...