mtholder
commented
3 years ago Thanks for the comment and the link to MolluscaBase. I'll look into whether or not we can add it to our taxonomic sources the next time we update our taxonomic backbone. With respect to higher order relationships, problems usually can be classified as mainly (1) we don't have enough trees as inputs, (2) the errors in our taxonomy are inhibiting the efficient usage of phylogenetic signal from the input trees we have, or (3) our supertree methods are not sophisticated enough to assemble a good tree in the face of conflict in the input. Usually we have to just try and see if we can improve things by adding better taxonomic info or more phylogenetic inputs. Related to point (1) a I noticed that we don't have Gonzalez et al 2015 tree in the tree construction step, so I added a stub for that study at https://tree.opentreeoflife.org/curator/study/view/ot_2024 If we can get that study fully entered as an input, it might help the next time we build the tree. Thanks, Mark
snacktavish
This is such a mess that it's hard to know where to begin. Genomic analyses and morphological studies place gastropods and bivalves as sister taxa. Within Bivalvia, the first branch is Protobranchia (Nuculida, Nuculanida, Solemyida, Nucinellida) versus Autobranchia. Within Autobranchia, the basal split is Pteriomorphia which includes (Arcida, ((Mytilida,Ostreida),(Pectinida,Limida))) versus Heteroconchia (Palaeoheterodonta, Archiheterodonta,Heterodonta). Many of the listed species don't belong in the listed genus, e.g., only about half a dozen species are actually in Mytilus. Uncritical grabbing of names doesn't give good results - you need to actually support the basic taxonomic work before making a tree of this sort.