Effect of genetic convergence on phylogenetic inference.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_785255F7032D
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Effect of genetic convergence on phylogenetic inference.
Journal
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
Author(s)
Christin P.A., Besnard G., Edwards E.J., Salamin N.
ISSN
1095-9513 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
1055-7903
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2012
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
62
Number
3
Pages
921-927
Language
english
Abstract
Phylogenetic reconstructions are a major component of many studies in evolutionary biology, but their accuracy can be reduced under certain conditions. Recent studies showed that the convergent evolution of some phenotypes resulted from recurrent amino acid substitutions in genes belonging to distant lineages. It has been suggested that these convergent substitutions could bias phylogenetic reconstruction toward grouping convergent phenotypes together, but such an effect has never been appropriately tested. We used computer simulations to determine the effect of convergent substitutions on the accuracy of phylogenetic inference. We show that, in some realistic conditions, even a relatively small proportion of convergent codons can strongly bias phylogenetic reconstruction, especially when amino acid sequences are used as characters. The strength of this bias does not depend on the reconstruction method but varies as a function of how much divergence had occurred among the lineages prior to any episodes of convergent substitutions. While the occurrence of this bias is difficult to predict, the risk of spurious groupings is strongly decreased by considering only 3rd codon positions, which are less subject to selection, as long as saturation problems are not present. Therefore, we recommend that, whenever possible, topologies obtained with amino acid sequences and 3rd codon positions be compared to identify potential phylogenetic biases and avoid evolutionarily misleading conclusions.
Keywords
Phylogeny, Bias, Evolutionary convergence, Amino acids, Codons, Simulations
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
12/01/2012 9:43
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:35
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