A Total-Evidence Approach to Dating with Fossils, Applied to the Early Radiation of the Hymenoptera

Phylogenies are usually dated by calibrating interior nodes against the fossil record. This relies on indirect methods that, in the worst case, misrepresent the fossil information. Here, we contrast such node dating with an approach that includes fossils along with the extant taxa in a Bayesian total-evidence analysis. As a test case, we focus on the early radiation of the Hymenoptera, mostly documented by poorly preserved impression fossils that are difficult to place phylogenetically. Specifically, we compare node dating using nine calibration points derived from the fossil record with total-evidence dating based on 343 morphological characters scored for 45 fossil (4--20 complete) and 68 extant taxa. In…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: 0337220
• SN
  Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
• V
  Vetenskapsrådet