Collaborative Research: Testing Biogeographic Models of Community Assembly, Colonization and Vicariance with Comparative Phylogeographic Data and Hierarchical Bayesian Models

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New computational tools that use hierarchical approximate Bayesian computation will be developed to analyze genetic sequence data from many (i.e., 5 - 500) individuals of many (i.e., 50 - 500) species simultaneously, with the goal of estimating rates of range expansion, colonization, and divergence that will be used to test models of community assembly and evolution. These tools must be computationally efficient so that analysis of large data sets is possible for scientists using widely available computer hardware, and they must incorporate uncertainty and variability in estimates of dispersal, mutation, and evolutionary divergence. Continued development of software tools in the msBayes comparative phylogeographic framework will help stimulate research at the interface of ecology, evoluationary biology, and conservation biology.The field of phylogeography draws on population genetics, community ecology, and systematics to understand the evolutionary history of species and communities. Analysis of genetic variability within species and communities can provide insights into how communities established and how species within those communities evolved. It can also suggest how species and communities may respond to changes in climate, invasions, and possible outcomes of combining species into communities that have no current or historic analogs. A young faculty member, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers will contribute to this tool development, and undergraduate students will benefit from the results of this work as it is integrated into coursework at the extremely ethnically diverse Queens College (NY).