chloroplast and other genes (was Lucy in Newsweek)

[Curtis Clark]

At 20:41 2004-04-01, Ken Kinman wrote:
>      I have come to a similar conclusion.  Chloroplast genes are probably
> generally less reliable than nuclear genes for phylogeny reconstruction
> (although there are probably exceptions).  With respect to angiosperms in
> particular, I think phylogenies based on chloroplast genes may have been
> stretched beyond their reliability in some cases.

Incongruence between chloroplast and nuclear genomes often has *specific
meaning* relating to introgression, hybrid speciation, lineage sorting, and
other population-level phenomena. It's not that the chloroplast phylogenies
have been stretched beyond their reliability; rather their interpretation
has been stretched.


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Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Web Coordinator, Cal Poly Pomona                 +1 909 979 6371
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