Schedule
We are meeting this semester (Fall 2025) on Fridays from 11:15-12:05 in TLS 171b (i.e. the Bamford Conference Room).
If you are a UConn graduate student interested in Systematics and would like to join us, please write to Paul Lewis for a permission number.
Subscribe to systematics listserv to receive emails containing connection information (or write to someone listed in Contact Info).
August 29, 2025
Organizational meeting
September 5, 2025
Nick chose this paper to discuss:
BP Waldron, EF Watts, DJ Morgan, MM Hantak, AR Lemmon, EC Moriarty Lemmon, and SR Kuchta. 2025. The limits of the metapopulation: lineage fragmentation in a widespread terrestrial salamander (Plethodon cinereus). Systematic Biology 74(1):1–15 DOI:10.1093/sysbio/syae053
September 12, 2025
Analisa chose this paper to discuss:
MS Gill, G Baele, MA Suchard, P Lemey. 2025. Infinite mixture models for improved modeling of across-site evolutionary variation. Molecular Biology and Evolution 42:1-21. DOI:10.1093/molbev/msaf199
We know this paper will be a heavy lift for some (most?) of you, so Analisa will explain the basic ideas behind the methods compared at the start of the seminar.
September 19, 2025
Kim chose this paper to discuss:
JY Lim, CR Marshall, EA Zimmer, WL Wagner. 2019. Multiple colonizations of the Pacific by Peperomia (Piperaceae): complex patterns of long‐distance dispersal and parallel radiations on the Hawaiian Islands. Journal of Biogeography 46:2651–2662. DOI:10.1111/jbi.13717
September 26, 2025
Doug will lead discussion on this paper:
L Yuanning, X-X Shen, B Evans, CW Dunn, and A Rokas. 2021. Rooting the animal tree of life. MBE 38:4322–4333. DOI:10.1093/molbev/msab170
October 3, 2025
Netanya will lead discussion on this paper, which provides a nice follow-up to our discussion last week:
DT Schultz, SHD Haddock, JV Bredeson, RE Green, O Simakov, and DS Rokhsar. 2023. Ancient gene linkages support ctenophores as sister to other animals. Nature 618:110-117. DOI:10.1038/s41586-023-05936-6
October 10, 2025
Crystal will lead discussion on this paper, which examines the relationship between sympatric speciation and morphological divergence in plants.
I Olivares, S Fourby, R Cámara-Leret, and AL Pigot. 2025. The likelihood of sympatric speciation and morphological divergence in plants. PNAS 122(34):e2508958122 DOI:10.1073/pnas.2508958122
October 17, 2025
Nick Van Gilder will present some of his own work this Friday, which involves using ddRAD data to characterize diversity in the plethodontid salamander species Batrachoseps diabolicus.
Nick suggests the following paper as background reading. He says “My 2nd dissertation chapter uses genomic approaches to characterize range-wide diversity (and eventually, the presence of cryptic species) within B. diabolicus, so being familiar with at least that species would be a good leg up for Friday’s discussion. I don’t think people need to commit to the entire thing if they’re time limited, though sections following the BIOCHEMICAL DATA HEADER after the description sections are worth reading.”
EL Jockusch, DB Wake, and KP Yanev. 1998. New species of slender salamanders, Batrachoseps (Amphibia: Plethodontidae), from the Sierra Nevada of California. Contributions in Science (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County): 472:1-17. Biodiversity Heritage Library
October 24, 2025
Analisa and Paul will present some results from Analisa’s dissertation research having to do with measuring the information content of data for species tree inference.
For some background, please read the indicated sections of this paper:
DG Brown and M Owen. 2020. The mean and variance of phylogenetic trees. Systematic Biology 69(1):139-154. DOI:10.1093/sysbio/syz041
While you are welcome to read the entire paper, we will not actually be discussing this paper per se and so these sections are the most important for background into what we will be discussing:
- Introduction
- Mean and Variance
- Other Measures of Centrality and Variance
October 31, 2025
Meghan has chosen the following paper for discussion:
T Zhao, A Zwaenepoel, JY Xue, SM Kau, Z Li, ME Schranz, and Y Van der Peer. 2021. Whole-genome microsynteny-based phylogeny of angiosperms. Nature Communications 12:3498 DOI:10.1038/s41467-021-23665-0
November 7, 2025
GS de Miranda, SS Kulkarni, J Tagliatela, CM Baker, APL Giupponi, FM Labarque, E Gavish-Regev, M Rix, LS Carvalho, LM Fusari, MS Harvey, HM Wood, and PP Sharma. 2024. The rediscovery of a relict unlocks the first global phylogeny of whip spiders (Amblypygi). Systematic Biology, 73(3):495–505. DOI:10.1093/sysbio/syae021