Evaluating hypotheses on the origin and evolution of the New Zealand alpine cicadas (maoricicada) using multiple-comparison tests of tree topology

The statistical testing of alternative phylogenetic trees is central to eva luating competing evolutionary hypotheses. Fleming proposed that the New Ze aland cicada species Maoricicada iolanthe is the sister species to the majo r radiation of both low-altitude and montane Maoricicada species. However, using 1,520 bp of mitochondrial DNA sequence data from the cytochrome oxida se subunit I, tRNA aspartic acid, and the ATPase subunit 6 and 8 genes, we inferred that both M. iolanthe and another low-altitude species, Maoricicad a campbelli, are nested within the montane Maoricicada radiation. Therefore , we examined the stability of the inferred phylogenetic placement of these two species using the newly developed Shimodaira-Hasegawa test (SH test) i mplemented in a maximum-likelihood framework. The SH test has two advantage s over the more commonly used Kishino-Hasegawa (KH) and Templeton tests. Fi rst, the SH test simultaneously compares multiple topologies and corrects t he corresponding P values to accommodate the multiplicity of testing. Secon d, the SH test is correct when applied to a posteriori hypotheses, unlike t he KH test, because it readjusts the expectation of the null hypothesis (th at two trees are not different) accordingly. The comparison of P values est imated under the assumptions of both the KH test and the SH test clearly de monstrate that the KH test has the potential to be misleading when the issu e of comparing of a posteriori hypotheses is ignored and when multiple comp arisons are not taken into account. The SH test, in combination with a vari ety of character-weighting schemes applied to our data, reveals a surprisin g amount of ambiguity in the phylogenetic placement of M. iolanthe and M. c ampbelli.