Top Highlights

• Interestingly, the 800-year-old sample from Troy (Turkey) falls within contemporary genetic diversity
• S. saprophyticus, by contrast, appears to be a generalist that colonizes a range of environments.
• The length of the branch leading to S. saprophyticus Troy is similar to those leading to the other tips (Figure 4A), suggesting there is little temporal signal in the phylogeny.
• Calibrated phylogenetic analyses (Appendix) confirmed the absence of temporal signal, which precludes reliable estimation of the rate of substitution or divergence times for S. saprophyticus.
• The 800 year interval between S. saprophyticus Troy and the other tips may simply be too short relative to the overall depth of the tree to allow reliable rate inference.

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