A consistent estimator of the evolutionary rate
2015 (engelsk)Inngår i: Journal of Theoretical Biology, ISSN 0022-5193, E-ISSN 1095-8541, Vol. 371, s. 69-78Artikkel i tidsskrift (Fagfellevurdert) Published
Abstract [en]
We consider a branching particle system where particles reproduce according to the pure birth Yule process with the birth rate λ, conditioned on the observed number of particles to be equal to n. Particles are assumed to move independently on the real line according to the Brownian motion with the local variance σ2. In this paper we treat n particles as a sample of related species. The spatial Brownian motion of a particle describes the development of a trait value of interest (e.g. log-body-size). We propose an unbiased estimator Rn2 of the evolutionary rate ρ2=σ2/λ. The estimator Rn2 is proportional to the sample variance Sn2 computed from n trait values. We find an approximate formula for the standard error of Rn2 based on a neat asymptotic relation for the variance of Sn2.
sted, utgiver, år, opplag, sider
2015. Vol. 371, s. 69-78
Emneord [en]
Branching Brownian motion; Conditioned branching process; Tree-free phylogenetic comparative method; Quantitative trait evolution; Yule process
HSV kategori
Forskningsprogram
Statistik; Matematisk statistik; Biologi
Identifikatorer
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-246249OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-246249DiVA, id: diva2:792501
2015-03-042015-03-042017-12-04