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Use and Misuse of Comparative Methods in the Study of Adaptation

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Modern Phylogenetic Comparative Methods and Their Application in Evolutionary Biology

Abstract

The comparative method can be used to test hypotheses of adaptation by comparing groups of species that meet different adaptive challenges. This requires attention to phylogenetic correlations and to historical lags in achieving adaptation. The modern phylogenetic comparative method has provided some partial solutions to these problems, but the field has also suffered from a systemic lack of demand for biological justifications of its statistical procedures. Consequently, assumptions have been made for statistical convenience and are often inconsistent with the relevant biology. I argue that common comparative tests of adaptation, including Brownian-motion based phylogenetic linear models and inferred-changes methods based on reconstructing ancestral states, violate essential characteristics of adaptation as a biological process. I discuss the requirements for biologically consistent comparative analysis of adaptation, and I review work toward this goal.

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Acknowledgments

I thank the editor, László Zsolt Garamszegi, for the invitation to contribute to this volume, and the editor and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft. I thank Antonieta Labra for help in developing Figs. 14.3 and 14.4, and Sandrine Hughes for permission to use Fig. 14.2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, CEES, University of Oslo, Blindern, P.O. Box 1066, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Thomas F. Hansen

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Correspondence to Thomas F. Hansen .

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  1. Department of Evolutionary Ecology, Estación Biológica de Doñana-CSIC, Sevilla, Spain

    László Zsolt Garamszegi

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Hansen, T.F. (2014). Use and Misuse of Comparative Methods in the Study of Adaptation. In: Garamszegi, L. (eds) Modern Phylogenetic Comparative Methods and Their Application in Evolutionary Biology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43550-2_14

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