Log Transformation Improves Dating of Phylogenies.

The level of divergence between species represented by sequence data is a function of unknown time and mutation rates. Therefore, sequence data do not reveal exact timing of evolutionary events, and inferred phylogenies often have branch lengths estimated in the unit of the expected number of substitutions. Dating a phylogeny is the process of translating branch lengths from this unit to time unit. Such a process requires soft or hard constraints for the timing of some nodes and infers the divergence times of the remaining nodes.