Collaborative Research: Phylogeographic Inference Using Approximated Likelihoods

物种生活的地方会随着时间的推移而变化--例如，山脉可能会上升，将一个物种分成不同的种群，或者一小群个体可能会搭上压载水的顺风车，开始在一个新的地理区域内传播。为了研究物种随时间推移的历史，科学家通常将可能的历史表示为模型，并将观测数据的适合性与这些模型进行比较。这笔赠款将开发新的建模方法和软件，使科学家能够测试替代的、复杂的模型，这些模型最适合各种生物体群体的观测数据。使用北美蝙蝠的测试案例将有助于确保新软件能够有效地容纳各种类型的数据。这项工作具有实际意义，因为新方法可以用来帮助识别入侵物种的来源。这在保护方面也很重要，因为这些方法将提供不同水系中的一个物种是一个还是多个种群的信息，两个相关物种之间是否发生杂交，以及一个物种的有效种群规模在一段时间内是多少。研究生和博士后也将接受这些方法的培训。

Where species live changes through time -- for example, mountains may rise, dividing one species into distinct populations, or a small group of individuals may hitch a ride in ballast water and start spreading within a new geographic area. To investigate the history of species through time, scientists often represent possible histories as models and compare the fit of observed data to these models. This grant will develop new modeling methods and software to allow scientists to test alternative, complex models that best fit observed data for various groups of organisms. A test case, using North American bats, will help ensure that the new software can accommodate various types of data effectively.This work has practical importance because the new methods can be used to help identify sources of invasive species. It is also important in conservation because these methods will provide information about whether a species in different river systems is one or multiple populations, whether hybridization is occurring between two related species, and what the effective population size of a species has been through time. Graduate students and postdoctoral students will be trained in these methods as well.