National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93101, USA.
Evolution. 2011 Jul;65(7):1841-50. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01265.x. Epub 2011 Mar 19.
Numerous evolutionary studies have sought to explain the distribution of diversity across the limbs of the tree of life. At the same time, ecological studies have sought to explain differences in diversity and relative abundance within and among ecological communities. Traditionally, these patterns have been considered separately, but models that consider processes operating at the level of individuals, such as neutral biodiversity theory (NBT), can provide a link between them. Here, we compare evolutionary dynamics across a suite of NBT models. We show that NBT can yield phylogenetic tree topologies with imbalance closely resembling empirical observations. In general, metacommunities that exhibit greater disparity in abundance are characterized by more imbalanced phylogenetic trees. However, NBT fails to capture the tempo of diversification as represented by the distribution of branching events through time. We suggest that population-level processes might therefore help explain the asymmetry of phylogenetic trees, but that tree shape might mislead estimates of evolutionary rates unless the diversification process is modeled explicitly.
许多进化研究试图解释生命之树分支上多样性的分布。与此同时，生态研究试图解释多样性和相对丰度在生态群落内和之间的差异。传统上，这些模式是分开考虑的，但是考虑个体水平上的过程的模型，如中性生物多样性理论（NBT），可以在它们之间提供联系。在这里，我们比较了一套 NBT 模型的进化动态。我们表明，NBT 可以产生与经验观察非常相似的不平衡的系统发育树拓扑结构。一般来说，表现出更大丰度差异的复合群落的系统发育树更不平衡。然而，NBT 未能捕捉到以时间分布的分支事件来表示的多样化速度。我们认为，种群水平的过程可能有助于解释系统发育树的不对称性，但除非明确建模多样化过程，否则树的形状可能会误导对进化率的估计。
