Evolutionary rate simulation
Our simple simulation, based on generating datasets with a trueσ 2 value of 0, demonstrated that our new, bin-based approach to characterizing species’ known fundamental niches for comparative phylogenetic analysis led to evolutionary rate estimates closer to the true rate than traditional character coding methods (Fig. 2). The differences between the two character coding methods were consistent as the number of taxa increased. These patterns were consistent between the cool and warm niche simulations. We do not advocate bin-based coding over traditional coding methods when the goal is to estimate rates of niche evolution quantitatively across a phylogeny. However, these initial results illustrate a potential source of error when attempting comparative phylogenetic analysis using traditional coding methods—traditional coding is often reliant on the frequency of environmental barriers within realized niche space, instead of focusing on the range of suitable niche values.