Molecular-clock methods for estimating evolutionary rates and timescales

The molecular clock presents a means of estimating evolutionary rates and timescales using genetic data. These estimates can lead to important insights into evolutionary processes and mechanisms, as well as providing a framework for further biological analyses. To deal with rate variation among genes and among lineages, a diverse range of molecular-clock methods have been developed. These methods have been implemented in various software packages and differ in their statistical properties, ability to handle different models of rate variation, capacity to incorporate various forms of calibrating information and tractability for analysing large data sets. Choosing a suitable molecular-clock model can be a challenging exercise, but a number of model-selection techniques are available. In this review, we describe the different forms of evolutionary rate heterogeneity and explain how they can be accommodated in molecular-clock analyses. We provide an outline of the various clock methods and models that are available, including the strict clock, local clocks, discrete clocks and relaxed clocks. Techniques for calibration and clock-model selection are also described, along with methods for handling multilocus data sets. We conclude our review with some comments about the future of molecular clocks.