Abstract: Biodiversity arises from the balance between speciation and extinction. Fossils record the origins and disappearance of organisms, and the branching patterns of molecular phylogenies allow estimation of speciation and extinction rates, but the patterns of diversification are frequently incongruent between these two data sources. I tested two hypotheses about the diversification of primates based on ~600 fossil species and 90% complete phylogenies of living species: 1) diversification rates increased through time; 2) a significant extinction eve...
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