Applying evolutionary theory to biodiversity and conservation

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We are interested in how evolution unfolds on a grand scale. One window into this unfolding is the pattern traced in the family tree of organisms: Is the tree small, with few branches that go deep back into time, or the tree large and compact, with many species all closely related to each other, or are some parts of the tree straggly and some parts bushy? Can we see when speciation rates have been high, and when they have been low? Using publically-available genetic data, fossil data and supercomputers, we build large trees (e.g. all 10000 species of the world's birds, or all 1000 of the world's sharks and rays) and then compare these trees with model expectations to test particular theories of evolution - e.g. that diversification slows down as niches fill up, or that that some groups speciate more often in periods of global cooling, and others during periods of global warming.