Phylogenetically independent contrasts (Felsenstein 1985; Garland et al. 1992) is a method for removing phylogenetic information from a character dataset, e.g. morphometric data. The purpose of this is to reduce the phylogenetic interdependence of data points, which can violate the assumptions of many statistical tests.
The module requires one or more columns of character data. In addition, the “tree collection” in Past must contain one or more trees. The taxon names in the trees must match the row names in the spreadsheet.
References
Felsenstein, J. 1985. Phylogenies and the comparative method. American Naturalist 125:1-15.
Garland Jr., T., Harvey, P.H., Ives, A.R. 1992. Procedures for the analysis of comparative data using phylogenetically independent contrasts. Systematic Biology 41:18-32.