{
  "abstract": "Continuous traits evolve unevenly across phylogenies, producing patterns of phenotypic differentiation shaped by both shared ancestry and lineage-specific change. Identifying exceptionally differentiated species pairs may therefore improve genome-phenome comparisons, but existing approaches rarely rank such contrasts across entire trees. Here we introduce the Phenotype Shift Score (PSS), a phylogenetic comparative framework integrating model-based trait divergence, observed trait range and patristic distance. Applying PSS to 153 continuous primate traits reveals trait-specific distributions of extreme differentiation across evolutionary depth. Body and brain mass show deeper-than-expected extremes under fitted Brownian motion or Ornstein-Uhlenbeck nulls, whereas body-size-adjusted brain mass localizes recent differentiation within cercopithecid lineages, complementing published branchwise reconstructions. PSS-informed groups produce more selective and more strongly enriched comparative-genomic signals than groups based on absolute phenotypic extremes. PSS is implemented in the open-source R package phyloPSS, with pairwise results available through the Primate Genome-Phenome Archive.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "University of California Santa Cruz"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 3,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "F. Barteri"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Navarro"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "O. E. Cornejo"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0f8eqaa0cr2xg.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.03.749256",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749256v1.full",
  "id": "0f8eqaa0cr2xg",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749256v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "evolutionary biology"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1911|Evolution and Paleontology Studies"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7211971595",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749256v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0f8eqaa0cr2xg.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:20:18Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.09.03.749256",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749256v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:evolutionary biology",
      "subfield": "evolutionary-biology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Phenotype shift scores reveal the scale and phylogenetic structure of phenotypic differentiation in primates.",
  "title_text": "Phenotype shift scores reveal the scale and phylogenetic structure of phenotypic differentiation in primates.",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:20:18Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0f8eqaa0cr2xg",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}