This function computes the gamma-statistic which summarizes the
information contained in the inter-node intervals of a phylogeny. It
is assumed that the tree is ultrametric. Note that the function does
not check that the tree is effectively ultrametric, so if it is not,
the returned result may not be meaningful.
Usage
gammaStat(phy)
Arguments
phy
an object of class "phylo".
Value
a numeric vector of length one.
Details
The gamma-statistic is a summary of the information contained in the
inter-node intervals of a phylogeny; it follows, under the assumption
that the clade diversified with constant rates, a normal distribution
with mean zero and standard-deviation unity (Pybus and Harvey
2000). Thus, the null hypothesis that the clade diversified with
constant rates may be tested with 2*(1 -
pnorm(abs(gammaStat(phy)))) for a two-tailed test, or 1 -
pnorm(abs(gammaStat(phy))) for a one-tailed test, both returning
the corresponding P-value.
References
Pybus, O. G. and Harvey, P. H. (2000) Testing macro-evolutionary
models using incomplete molecular phylogenies. Proceedings of
the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences,
267, 2267--2272.