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PNAS | June 11, 2002 | vol. 99 | no. 12 | 8112-8115
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Evolution
 A methodological bias toward overestimation of molecular evolutionary time scales

Francisco Rodríguez-Trelles*,dagger ,Dagger , Rosa Tarrío*,§, and Francisco J. Ayala*

* Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2525; dagger  Instituto de Investigaciones Agrobiológicas de Galicia (CSIC), Avenida de Vigo s/n, Apartado 122, 15780 Santiago de Compostela, Spain; and § Misión Biológica de Galicia (CSIC), Apartado 28, 36080 Pontevedra, Spain

Contributed by Francisco J. Ayala, April 16, 2002

There is presently a conflict between fossil- and molecular-based evolutionary time scales. Molecular approaches for dating the branches of the tree of life frequently lead to substantially deeper times of divergence than those inferred by paleontologists. The discrepancy between molecular and fossil estimates persists despite the booming growth of sequence data sets, which increasingly feeds the interpretation that molecular estimates are older than stratigraphic dates because of deficiencies in the fossil record. Here we show that molecular time estimates suffer from a methodological handicap, namely that they are asymmetrically bounded random variables, constrained by a nonelastic boundary at the lower end, but not at the higher end of the distribution. This introduces a bias toward an overestimation of time since divergence, which becomes greater as the length of the molecular sequence and the rate of evolution decrease.

Dagger To whom reprint requests should be addressed at: (c/o Francisco J. Ayala) Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 321 Steinhaus Hall, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-2525. E-mail: ftrelles{at}iiag.cesga.es.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.122231299
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