POUMM

The Phylogenetic Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Mixed Model (POUMM) allows to estimate the phylogenetic heritability of continuous traits, to test hypotheses of neutral evolution versus stabilizing selection, to quantify the strength of stabilizing selection, to estimate measurement error and to make predictions about the evolution of a phenotype and phenotypic variation in a population. The package implements combined maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference of the univariate Phylogenetic Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Mixed Model, fast parallel likelihood calculation, maximum likelihood inference of the genotypic values at the tips, functions for summarizing and plotting traces and posterior samples, functions for simulation of a univariate continuous trait evolution model along a phylogenetic tree. So far, the package has been used for estimating the heritability of quantitative traits in macroevolutionary and epidemiological studies, see e.g. Bertels et al. (2017) doi:10.1093/molbev/msx246 and Mitov and Stadler (2018) doi:10.1093/molbev/msx328. The algorithm for parallel POUMM likelihood calculation has been published in Mitov and Stadler (2019) doi:10.1111/2041-210X.13136.