The growth of phylogenetic trees in scope and in size is promising from the standpoint of
understanding a wide variety of evolutionary patterns and processes. With trees comprised …

Phylogenetic evidence for biological traits that increase the net diversification rate of
lineages (key innovations) is most commonly drawn from comparisons of clade size. This …

With increases in both the size and scope of phylogenetic trees, we are afforded a renewed
opportunity to address long-standing comparative questions, such as whether particular fruit …

Modern phylogenetic comparative biology uses data from the relationships between species
(phylogeny) combined with comparative information for phenotypic traits to draw model …

Studies of character evolution often assume that a phylogeny's shape is determined
independently of the characters, which then evolve as mere passengers along the tree's …

Much recent progress in evolutionary biology is based on the inference of ancestral states
and past transformations in important traits on phylogenetic trees. These exercises often …

Improvements in our understanding of green plant phylogeny are casting new light on the
connection between character evolution and diversification. The repeated discovery of …

Why are some traits and trait combinations exceptionally common across the tree of life,
whereas others are vanishingly rare? The distribution of trait diversity across a clade at any …

Growing evidence of morphological diversity in angiosperm flowers, seeds and pollen from
the mid Cretaceous and the presence of derived lineages from increasingly older geological …

The development of comparative phylogenetic methods has provided a powerful toolkit for
addressing adaptive hypotheses, and researchers have begun to apply these methods to …