#  Sustained fast rates of evolution explain how tetrapods evolved from fish 

 





August 23, 2021

 

 

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 In a study published August 23 in Nature Ecology and Evolution Harvard researchers establish the origin date of the earliest tetrapods and discover they acquired several of the major new adaptive traits that enabled vertebrate life on land at accelerated evolutionary rates.

 The study led by Dr. Tiago R. Simões, postdoctoral researcher, and senior author Professor Stephanie E. Pierce, both from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, applied recently developed statistical methods (Bayesian evolutionary analysis) to precisely estimate the time and rates of anatomical evolution during the rise of tetrapods. The Bayesian method was adapted from methods originally developed in epidemiology to study how viruses like COVID-19 evolve and only recently became a tool in paleontology for the study of species evolution.

 Read more [here](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/925967).



 

 

 



 

 

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