Testing Numerical Approaches to Phylogenetic Inference

测试系统发育推断的数值方法

• 批准号: 8822491
• 负责人: Robert Sokal
• 金额: $ 13.34万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Stony Brook
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1989
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1989-08-01 至 1992-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8822491&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Testing; Numerical; Approaches; Phylogenetic; Inference

Evolutionary relationships among organisms are central to research in the biological sciences. Understanding the history of branching and divergence through the history of a group of organisms must precede an understanding of their function, ecology, geographic distribution, even their relevance for medical research. Drs. Robert Sokal and F. James Rohlf have, for the past three decades, pioneered the use of computers for reconstructing evolutionary relationships among organisms based on morphological and molecular data sets. Several different approaches have been proposed for reconstructing phylogenies (e.g., maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, overall similarity). Past work by Sokal and Rohlf has shown that under different circumstances, each of these alternate methods produces the most accurate and stable reconstruction of a computer- generated branching history. They now propose to develop new methods with which investigators can select the most appropriate tool for analyzing real data, for which the underlying branching history is unknown. The methods and advice to be developed will have a wide audience, including systematists working on all organisms, and functional morphologists and biogeographers, for whom evolutionary relationships provide the framework for their research.

生物体之间的进化关系是生物科学研究的核心。在了解一组生物体的功能、生态学、地理分布，甚至它们与医学研究的相关性之前，必须先了解一组生物体的分枝和分歧的历史。在过去的三十年里，罗伯特·索卡尔博士和F·詹姆斯·罗尔夫博士率先使用计算机，根据形态和分子数据集重建生物之间的进化关系。已经提出了几种不同的方法来重建系统发育(例如，最大简约法、最大似然法、总体相似性)。Sokal和Rohlf过去的工作表明，在不同的情况下，这些替代方法中的每一种都能产生最准确和最稳定的计算机生成的分支历史重建。他们现在提议开发新的方法，让研究人员可以选择最合适的工具来分析实际数据，这些数据的潜在分支历史是未知的。将要开发的方法和建议将有广泛的受众，包括致力于所有生物体的系统学家，以及进化关系为他们的研究提供框架的功能形态学家和生物地理学家。