When dealing with molecular dating, ones referring to a reference time based on fossil records. How feasible/comparable can these data be applied to study the evolution of a particular genus when we can assessed to some of the widely used genetic markers, e.g., ribosomal DNA (28S or LSU, 18S or SSU), nuclear encoded gene (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2), mitochondrial DNA (cox1) and plastid gene (RUBISCO or rbcL)?
Since each of the gene markers evolve independently with different evolutionary rate, would the calibration be optimal based on only one gene tree? Which gene marker is more preferable and what kind of criteria should we follow? Should we combine the gene trees follow by the calibration? Or, concatenate the sequence data of all the available gene markers, generate a tree, only then calibration?
Thanks,
HongChang