The speed and accuracy of judgments like trustworthiness can be impaired by incongruent information about traits and the behavioral events in which they occurred [45].
Cross-species comparisons provide important information about traits such as the appendix (Fisher 2000) and primate diets (Leonard 2007).
In principle, inbred strains are selectively bred for certain traits from a genetically diverse pool, comprising diverse genetic information about the trait.
These candidates may be selected on the basis of information theoretic measures [57], [58] using information about the trait under investigation; or on the basis of evidence from other data, i.e. using external and independent information [59], e.g. omics analyses.
Otherwise, however, there is mostly only anecdotal information about how trait variation among species underpins ecosystem functions related to carbon, nutrient and water cycling.
Other types of information, such as molecular marker data and information about quantitative trait locus (QTL) and genes, are simpler to provide and should be made available to users soon.
Nonetheless, most studies have not exploited information about quantitative trait locus (QTL) effects to infer selective histories (but see Rieseberg et al. 2002; Lexer et al. 2005; Albertson et al. 2003).
Previous studies have focused on complex traits such as whale flippers, and scientists often lack sufficient information about ancestral traits or how present-day traits evolved.
Students showed significant improvements in three skill-based items: inferring ancestral traits when provided with information about the traits of extant taxa (Q.6), mapping character state changes while constructing trees (Q.7c), and aligning extant taxa at branch tips while constructing trees (Q.7d; Table 3 and Figure 3).
"We are getting to the point where we are going to be able to make statistical predictions based on the genomic information about complex traits,'' Stephen Hsu told me.
