Bayesian molecular clock dating of species divergences in the genomics era

Five decades have passed since Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling first proposed the molecular clock hypothesis. The molecular clock has become an essential tool in evolutionary biology, from tracking virus pandemics to estimating the timeline of evolution of life on Earth.Early molecular clock dating studies made simplistic assumptions about the evolutionary process and proposed scenarios of species diversification that contradicted the fossil record.Bayesian clock dating methodology has become the standard tool for integrating information from fossils and molecules to estimate the timeline of the Tree of Life.Exciting developments in Bayesian clock dating include relaxed clock models, sophisticated fossil calibration curves and the joint analysis of morphology and sequence data.Bayesian clock dating analysis of genome-scale data has resolved many iconic controversies between fossils and molecules, such as the pattern of diversification of mammals and birds relative to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.