We are meeting this semester (Fall 2023) on Mondays 3-4pm in Gant W416. Subscribe to systematics listserv to receive emails containing connection information (or write to someone listed in Contact Info).

August 28, 2023

September 4, 2023

No class, Labor Day

September 11, 2023

Postponed: Zach will dicuss the paper Jorna et al. 2021. Species boundaries in the messy middle—A genome-scale validation of species delimitation in a recently diverged lineage of coastal fog desert lichen fungi Ecology and Evolution 11(24):18615-18632.

Instead of the paper above, we plan to discuss species delimitation in general. Here is a possible background paper to read (sorry for the late notice):

de Queiroz, K. 2007. Species concepts and species delimitation. Systematic Biology 56(6):879-886. DOI:10.1080/10635150701701083

September 18, 2023

Nick Van Gilder has chosen the following paper on species delimitation in geckos for this week. This paper evaluates the sensitivity of one of the most prominent Bayesian species delimitation methods, BPP, to the guide tree and prior for theta, the parameter that determines mean time to coalescence within populations (larger values mean deeper average coalescence times, all other things equal).

AD Leaché, MK Fujita. 2010. Bayesian species delimitation in West African forest geckos (Hemidactylus fasciatus). Proc. R. Soc. B 277:3071-3077. DOI:10.1098/rspb.2010.0662

September 25, 2023

Zach will dicuss the paper Jorna et al. 2021. Species boundaries in the messy middle—A genome-scale validation of species delimitation in a recently diverged lineage of coastal fog desert lichen fungi Ecology and Evolution 11(24):18615-18632.

October 2, 2023

Analisa will discuss this paper: LG Fabreti and S Höhna. Nucleotide substitution model selection is not necessary for Bayesian inference of phylogeny with well-behaved priors Systematic Biology (corrected proof). DOI:10.1093/sysbio/syad041

October 9, 2023

Frank will lead discussion on this paper: M Tatani, T Yamasaki, H Tanaka, T Nakata, S Chiba. 2023. What makes the diverse flight of birds possible? Phylogenetic comparative analysis of avian alula morphology. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI:10.1093/biolinnean/blad085

October 16, 2023

October 23, 2023

October 30, 2023

November 6, 2023

November 13, 2023

November 20, 2023

No class, Thanksgiving

November 27, 2023

December 4, 2023