The RelTime method estimates divergence times when evolutionary rates vary among
lineages. Theoretical analyses show that RelTime relaxes the strict molecular clock …

Relaxed clock models enable estimation of molecular substitution rates across lineages and
are widely used in phylogenetics for dating evolutionary divergence times. Under the …

The molecular clock provides a powerful way to estimate species divergence times. If
information on some species divergence times is available from the fossil or geological …

Integration of fungal evolution with the dates of plate tectonic movements, paleoecology, and
the evolution of plants and animals requires a molecular clock. Imperfect though they may …

The explosive growth of molecular sequence data has made it possible to estimate species
divergence times under relaxed-clock models using genome-scale data sets with many …

Background Molecular dating has gained ever-increasing interest since the molecular clock
hypothesis was proposed in the 1960s. Molecular dating provides detailed temporal …

Time-calibrated molecular phylogenies of extant species (“extant timetrees”) are widely used
for estimating the dynamics of speciation and extinction rates and reconstructing …

Constructing a multi-dimensional prior on the times of divergence (the node ages) of species
in a phylogeny is not a trivial task, in particular, if the prior density is the result of combining …

The fossil and geologic records provide the primary data used to established absolute
timescales for timetrees. For the paleontological evaluation of proposed timetree timescales …

Fossils are widely used as calibration points in molecular-based dating studies, but their
placement on a phylogenetic tree of extant species is always highly problematic. We explore …