Departament de Genètica i de Microbiologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Compr Physiol. 2012 Jan;2(1):639-74. doi: 10.1002/cphy.c100079.
Comparisons among species have been a standard tool in animal physiology to understand how organisms function and adapt to their surrounding environment. During the last two decades, conceptual and methodological advances from different fields, including evolutionary biology and systematics, have revolutionized the way comparative analyses are performed, resulting in the advent of modern phylogenetic statistical methods. This development stems from the realization that conventional analytical methods assume that observations are statistically independent, which is not the case for comparative data because species often resemble each other due to shared ancestry. By taking evolutionary history explicitly into consideration, phylogenetic statistical methods can account for the confounding effects of shared ancestry in interspecific comparisons, improving the reliability of standard approaches such as regressions or correlations in comparative analyses. Importantly, these methods have also enabled researchers to address entirely new evolutionary questions, such as the historical sequence of events that resulted in current patterns of form and function, which can only be studied with a phylogenetic perspective. Here, we provide an overview of phylogenetic approaches and their importance for studying the evolution of physiological processes and mechanisms. We discuss the conceptual framework underlying these methods, and explain when and how phylogenetic information should be employed. We then outline the difficulties and limitations inherent to comparative approaches and discuss potential problems researchers may encounter when designing a comparative study. These issues are illustrated with examples from the literature in which the incorporation of phylogenetic information has been useful, or even crucial, for inferences on how species evolve and adapt to their surrounding environment.
物种比较一直是动物生理学中理解生物如何运作和适应其周围环境的标准工具。在过去的二十年中，来自进化生物学和系统学等不同领域的概念和方法上的进步彻底改变了比较分析的方式，导致了现代系统发育统计方法的出现。这种发展源于这样一种认识，即传统的分析方法假设观察结果在统计上是独立的，而对于比较数据则不是这样，因为物种通常由于共同的祖先而彼此相似。通过明确考虑进化历史，系统发育统计方法可以解释种间比较中共同祖先的混杂效应，从而提高比较分析中回归或相关性等标准方法的可靠性。重要的是，这些方法还使研究人员能够解决全新的进化问题，例如导致当前形态和功能模式的历史事件序列，而这些问题只有通过系统发育的观点才能研究。在这里，我们提供了对系统发育方法及其在研究生理过程和机制进化中的重要性的概述。我们讨论了这些方法背后的概念框架，并解释了何时以及如何使用系统发育信息。然后，我们概述了比较方法固有的困难和局限性，并讨论了研究人员在设计比较研究时可能遇到的潜在问题。这些问题通过文献中的示例来说明，在这些示例中，纳入系统发育信息对于推断物种如何进化和适应其周围环境非常有用，甚至是至关重要的。
