Can fast early rates reconcile molecular dates with the Cambrian explosion?
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Molecular dates consistently place the divergence of major metazoan lineages in the Precambrian, leading to the suggestion that the 'Cambrian explosion' is an artefact of preservation which left earlier forms unrecorded in the fossil record. While criticisms of molecular analyses for failing to deal with variation in the rate of molecular evolution adequately have been countered by analyses which allow both site-to-site and lineage-specific rate variation, no analysis to date has allowed the rates to vary temporally. If the rates of molecular evolution were much higher early in the metazoan radiation, molecular dates could consistently overestimate the divergence times of lineages. Here, we use a new method which uses multiple calibration dates and an empirically determined range of possible substitution rates to place bounds on the basal date of divergence of lineages in order to ask whether faster rates of molecular evolution early in the metazoan radiation could possibly account for the discrepancy between molecular and palaeontological date estimates. We find that allowing basal (interphylum) lineages the fastest observed substitution rate brings the minimum possible divergence date (586 million years ago) to the Vendian period, just before the first multicellular animal fossils, but excludes divergence of the major metazoan lineages in a Cambrian explosion.
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Estimating maximum and minimum possible rates for a given data set requires several calibration dates, which are not always available, and gives conservative assessments of molecular dates suitable only for rejecting particular hypotheses as inconsistent with the data.
“Estimating maximum and minimum possible rates for a given data set requires several calibration dates, which are not always available, and gives conservative assessments of molecular dates that are suitable only for rejecting particular hypotheses as being inconsistent with the data 55 .”
From The modern molecular clock (2003) · cites this paper as [55]
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- Self-citation
Laflamme (2004) · doi:10.1666/0022-3360(2004)078
- Authors
- Bromham, L. D., & Hendy, M. D.
- Affiliations
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Massey University (NZ)
- Corresponding author
- Bromham, L. D.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2000-05-22
- Volume
- 267
- Issue
- 1447
- Pages
- 1041-1047
- ISSN
- 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
- 0962-8452
- 1471-2954
- PMC
- PMC1690629
- OpenAlex
- W2018170589
- Cited by
- 50
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 7.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology
- Keywords
- Cambrian explosion, divergence time estimation, molecular evolution rate, substitution rate variation
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Biological Evolution, Fossils, Models, Biological
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