Investigating Morphological Complexes Using Informational Dissonance and Bayes Factors: A Case Study in Corbiculate...

Area of Science:

• Evolutionary Biology
• Phylogenetics
• Morphological Evolution

Background:

• Genomic regions can have different evolutionary histories, impacting phylogenetic accuracy.
• The extent of trait discordance in morphological data and its evolutionary implications are less understood.
• Morphological discordance may result from convergent selection or hemiplasy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate patterns of discordance among morphological characters in bees.
• To assess phylogenetic signal and conflict within and across morphological modules.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of accounting for rate variation in morphological phylogenetics.

Main Methods:

• Scored 282 morphological characters for 50 bee species, focusing on corbiculate bees (Apidae).
• Grouped characters into morphological modules to identify integrated trait complexes.
• Employed Bayesian phylogenetic inference with model comparisons (Bayes factors) to assess conflict and coherence.

Main Results:

• Significant conflict was observed among different morphological complexes.
• Accounting for among-character and among-partition rate variation (gamma distributions, rate multipliers, linked branch lengths) improved phylogenetic coherence.
• Phylogenetic information and dissonance evaluation proved useful for morphological data analysis.

Conclusions:

• Coherent phylogenetic inference is achievable with morphological data by addressing rate variation.
• Evaluating information content and dissonance is crucial for morphological phylogenetics, analogous to molecular data analysis.
• Emerging methods for genomic dissonance analysis could offer insights into anatomical complex evolution and integration.