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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Using Phylogenetic Analysis to Investigate Eukaryotic Gene Origin
Published on: August 14, 2018
The exact distribution of divergence times
Saralees Nadarajah1, Samuel Kotz
1School of Mathematics, University of Manchester, Manchester M60 1QD, UK saralees.nadarajah@manchester.ac.uk
Abstract:
The recent work of Haubold and Wiehe (Mol. Biol. Evol. 18:1157-1160, 2001) considered statistical inference of the divergence time. However, there appears to be a fundamental flaw in the paper since it treated the divergence time as a random variable and not as a parameter. In this note, we derive a valid statistical inference for the divergence time. We derive an estimator for the divergence time as well as explicit expressions for its the probability density function, cumulative distribution function and the means. We also provide a 5-line computer program for computing the associated confidence intervals. We expect that the results presented could be useful for statistical modeling of divergence times.
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