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

将开发使用分层近似贝叶斯计算的新计算工具来分析来自许多（即，5 - 500个）个体的许多（即，50 - 500）物种同时，与范围扩张，殖民化和分歧，将用于测试模型的目标估计的速度社区组装和进化。这些工具必须具有计算效率，以便科学家能够使用广泛可用的计算机硬件分析大型数据集，并且它们必须在估计扩散，突变和进化分歧时考虑不确定性和可变性。在msBayes比较生态地理学框架中继续开发软件工具将有助于促进生态学、进化生物学和保护生物学的研究。生态地理学领域利用种群遗传学、群落生态学和系统学来了解物种和群落的进化历史。分析物种和群落内的遗传变异性可以深入了解群落是如何建立的，以及这些群落内的物种是如何进化的。它还可以表明物种和群落如何应对气候变化，入侵，以及将物种组合成没有当前或历史类似物的群落的可能结果。一个年轻的教师，研究生和博士后研究人员将有助于这一工具的开发，本科生将受益于这项工作的结果，因为它是在种族极其多样化的皇后学院（纽约）融入课程。

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).