Data from: Exploring rates of change and modes of evolution in blastozoan echinoderms

Over the past half-century, paleobiologists have advanced the estimation
of phylogenetic relationships among fossil taxa to explore evolutionary
patterns in deep time. This study employs phylogenetics, divergence time
calculations, and character rate evolution within three blastozoan
echinoderm clades: Diploporita, Eublastoidea, and Paracrinoidea. Utilizing
Reversible Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo (rjMCMC) and Fossilized
Birth-Death (FBD) models, we investigated evolutionary rates through
anatomical subunit partitioning. Results suggest similar rates among the
three groups, though Paracrinoidea exhibits elevated rates in several
anatomical subunits. The inferred trees largely agree with other recently
published analyses and highlight the need to revise echinoderm taxonomy.
We tested different clock models for each group and found that model
choice had strong effects on resulting trees; our findings suggest that
linked clocks had more support than unlinked clocks. These findings
indicate a need to carefully consider model choice and rates of evolution
when conducting these types of analyses.