simRatematrix {ratematrix}

Simulates multivariate trait evolution using a Brownian motion model

Description

Simulates correlated traits under a multivariate Brownian motion model. The function uses a covariance matrix (evolutionary rate matrix-R) to indicate the rates of the traits.

Usage

simRatematrix(tree, vcv, anc = NULL, internal = FALSE)

Arguments

tree

a phylogenetic tree of 'phylo' format.

vcv

a variance covariance matrix (the evolutionary rate matrix).

anc

a vector of the same length as the number of traits to be simulated (same as the dimension of the 'vcv' matrix). This is used as the values for the root in the simulations. If 'NULL' then all traits have root value of 0.

internal

whether to return the values simulated for the nodes in the phylogeny. If FALSE (default), then only returns the values simulated for the tips.

Details

This is a function derived from 'sim.corrs' in the package 'phytools'. This version has some edits to make the simulations more efficient for this particular use. For all other applications please refer to the original implementation of 'sim.corrs' in the package 'phytools' wrote by Liam Revell.

Value

Returns a matrix with each trait values for the tips. Traits are distributed in the rows and tips are distributed in the columns.

Author(s)

Daniel S. Caetano and Luke J. Harmon

References

Revell, L. J. 2012. phytools: an R package for phylogenetic comparative biology (and other things). Methods in Ecology and Evolution 3:217–223.