Partitioned Bayesian Analyses, Partition Choice, and the Phylogenetic Relationships of Scincid Lizards

Partitioned Bayesian analyses of approximately 2.2 kb of nucleotide sequence data (mtDNA) were used to elucidate phylogenetic relationships among 30 scincid lizard genera. Few partitioned Bayesian analyses exist in the literature, resulting in a lack of methods to determine the appropriate number of and identity of partitions. Thus, a criterion, based on the Bayes factor, for selecting among competing partitioning strategies is proposed and tested. Improvements in both mean -lnL and estimated posterior probabilities were observed when specific models and parameter estimates were assumed for partitions of the total data set. This result is expected given that the 95% credible intervals of model parameter…