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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.11.24.690345

bigrig: A range simulator for the DEC model

Bettisworth, B.·Stamatakis, A.
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Abstract

Quality software tools for science are, as a necessity, rigorously tested and verified. However, there is a major challenge to testing software used for phylogenetics and similar analysis. There is a shortage of ground truth data which can be used for validation, resulting in a reliance on simulated data. This reliance on simulated data results in a second challenge: the verification of the tool which generates the simulated data. In historical biogeography, software which simulated data has exclusively been implemented on an ad-hoc basis to verify specific tools. Here, we introduce bigrig, a simulator for the DEC[+J] model of range evolution. We show that bigrig is correct with extremely rigorous statistical testing and validation, ensuring that results deviate by no more than 0.0001 with 99.999% confidence. We also show that bigrig is extremely fast, capable of generating data for trees with tens of thousands of tips in under a second.

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Bettisworth, B., Stamatakis, A.. 2025-12-01. bigrig: A range simulator for the DEC model. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.24.690345

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