Supermatrices and model-based phylogeny programs: a bad combination

GOLOBOFF, PABLO

Honolulu

Congreso; XXIX Annual Meeting of the Willi Hennig Society; 2010

Willi Hennig Society

Supermatrices are typically formed by concatenating data sets for different genes, with only partial taxonomic overlap.  Given current implementations of maximum likelihood and bayesian phylogenetic programs, this lack of overlap can lead to serious artifacts.  This presentation will provide examples (both theoretical and empirical) of such artifacts.  Some modifications to current model based programs could solve the problems shown here, but would make searches much slower and/or result in much lower group supports.