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PACo: a novel procrustes application to cophylogenetic analysis
Juan Antonio Balbuena1, Raúl Míguez-Lozano, Isabel Blasco-Costa
1Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. j.a.balbuena@uv.es
Plos One
|April 13, 2013
Summary
We introduce Procrustean Approach to Cophylogeny (PACo), a new statistical tool for assessing phylogenetic congruence. PACo effectively tests coevolutionary models by evaluating host-parasite tree dependence, outperforming existing methods in power and validation.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Bioinformatics
Background:
- Coevolutionary studies often test for congruence between host and parasite phylogenies.
- Existing statistical methods may have limitations in handling incomplete phylogenies or assessing individual associations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce Procrustean Approach to Cophylogeny (PACo), a novel statistical tool for testing phylogenetic congruence.
- To evaluate the dependence of one phylogeny upon another, particularly for host-parasite coevolutionary models.
- To provide a method that accommodates incomplete phylogenies and multiple host-parasite associations.
Main Methods:
- PACo utilizes Procrustes superimposition to graphically assess the fit of parasite phylogeny onto host phylogeny.
- Significance is determined through randomization of host-parasite association data.
- Jackknife estimation measures the contribution of individual associations to the overall fit.
Main Results:
- Simulations show PACo performs comparably to or better than existing methods in terms of Type I and Type II errors.
- PACo demonstrates higher statistical power and provides more detailed validation of individual host-parasite links.
- Application to real biological data demonstrates PACo's utility in R statistical software.
Conclusions:
- PACo is a powerful and flexible tool for assessing phylogenetic congruence, especially for coevolutionary studies.
- The method offers enhanced graphical assessment and detailed validation of host-parasite associations.
- PACo provides a valuable advancement for analyzing host-parasite evolutionary relationships.
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