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A Practical Guide to Phylogenetics for Nonexperts
Published on: February 5, 2014
CoMET: a Mesquite package for comparing models of continuous character evolution on phylogenies
Chunghau Lee1, Sigal Blay, Arne Ø Mooers
1Department of Computer Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
Abstract:
Continuously varying traits such as body size or gene expression level evolve during the history of species or gene lineages. To test hypotheses about the evolution of such traits, the maximum likelihood (ML) method is often used. Here we introduce CoMET (Continuous-character Model Evaluation and Testing), which is module for Mesquite that automates likelihood computations for nine different models of trait evolution. Due to its few restrictions on input data, CoMET is applicable to testing a wide range of character evolution hypotheses. The CoMET homepage, which links to freely available software and more detailed usage instructions, is located at http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/eemb/labs/oakley/software/comet.htm.
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