Open Accessphylosignal: an R package to measure, test, and explore the phylogenetic signal
Author(s) -
Keck François,
Rimet Frédéric,
Bouchez Agnès,
Franc Alain
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
ecology and evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.17
H-Index - 63
ISSN - 2045-7758
DOI - 10.1002/ece3.2051
Subject(s) - phylogenetic tree , trait , phylogenetics , phylogenetic comparative methods , biology , autocorrelation , evolutionary biology , signal (programming language) , r package , measure (data warehouse) , statistics , computer science , data mining , genetics , mathematics , gene , programming language
Abstract Phylogenetic signal is the tendency for closely related species to display similar trait values as a consequence of their phylogenetic proximity. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists are becoming increasingly interested in studying the phylogenetic signal and the processes which drive patterns of trait values in the phylogeny. Here, we present a new R package, phylosignal which provides a collection of tools to explore the phylogenetic signal for continuous biological traits. These tools are mainly based on the concept of autocorrelation and have been first developed in the field of spatial statistics. To illustrate the use of the package, we analyze the phylogenetic signal in pollution sensitivity for 17 species of diatoms.