The identification and application of reliable fossil calibrations represents a key component
of many molecular studies of evolutionary timescales. In studies of plants, most …

The node-density effect is an artifact of phylogeny reconstruction that can cause branch
lengths to be underestimated in areas of the tree with fewer taxa. Webster, Payne, and Pagel …

The depiction of evolutionary relationships within phylum Ascomycota is still controversial
because of unresolved branching orders in the radiation of major taxa. Here we generated a …

We present molecular dating analyses for land plants that incorporate 33 fossil calibrations,
permit rates of molecular evolution to be uncorrelated across the tree, and take into account …

▪ Abstract Molecular clocks have profoundly influenced modern views on the timing of
important events in evolutionary history. We review recent advances in estimating …

Confidence in molecular dating analyses has grown with the increasing sophistication of the
methods. Some problematic cases where molecular dates disagreed with paleontological …

Calibration is a critical step in every molecular clock analysis but it has been the least
considered. Bayesian approaches to divergence time estimation make it possible to …

Evolutionary and biogeographic studies increasingly rely on calibrated molecular clocks to
date key events. Although there has been significant recent progress in development of the …

Many questions in evolutionary biology require an estimate of divergence times but, for
groups with a sparse fossil record, such estimates rely heavily on molecular dating methods …

Molecular evolutionary rates can show significant variation among lineages, complicating
the task of estimating substitution rates and divergence times using phylogenetic methods …