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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fred Ruhe" data-source="post: 3184453" data-attributes="member: 83329">N. Adam Smith, 2015Sixteen Vetted Fossil Callibrations for Divergence Dating of Charadriiformes (Aves Neognathae)Palaeontologia Electronica 18: 1.4FC: 1-18pdf: <a href="http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/410.pdf" target="_blank">http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/pdfs/410.pdf</a>Abstract:The Charadriiformes (shorebirds and allies) are an ecologically and morphologically diverse clade with a global geographic distribution. The perceived antiquity of this lineage and the cryptic plumage and morphology of some charadriiforms have made them a frequent focus of study by ornithologists. Likewise, with the relatively recent advent of molecular sequence based divergence estimation methods, no less than seven studies have estimated the timing of cladogenetic events in Charadriiformes.Unfortunately, all of those studies have suffered from poor choice and characterization (i.e., age and taxonomic assignment) of fossil calibrations used for divergence time analysis. Given that studies of both real and simulated data have demonstrated the potential for calibration choice to bias node age estimates, the results of previously published analyses of divergence times for Charadriiformes must, accordingly, be viewed with caution. To alleviate introduction of fossil calibration bias with respect to future analyses of divergence times including Charadriiformes, 16 rigorously evaluated charadriiform fossil calibrations are reported herein.Have fun,Fred</blockquote>

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