Re: Sobral and Langer 2008 (was pteros have lift-off)

[Augusto Haro <augustoharo@gmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:
>
> Well, that's a supertree. It's an average of published trees. It does not
> contain new information; it is not necessarily the most parsimonious
> hypothesis that fits the data, because it doesn't even use the data, it uses
> just the published trees and averages them together.

Don't know about how supertrees are made, and do not fully grasp what
an "average" would mean for a group of trees. Perhaps a majority rule
consensus or something like that?

I mean, in that study of Langer, is the only reason for pterosaurs
being most closely related with prolacertiforms and drepanosaurids
just that this hypothesis of relationship is recovered by most
studies? I would in principle think not; as far as I know the only
previous phylogenetic analysis stating that is that by Peters (2000)
in the Rivista Italiana.