DISSERTATION RESEARCH: RAD Phylogenetics: Harnessing Next-Generation Sequencing for Molecular Systematics

DNA序列现在通常用于重建物种之间的分支进化关系，通常以图形形式显示为系统发育树。系统发育树通常基于一个或几个遗传位点，每个位点代表一个物种完整遗传补体的很小一部分。由于随机遗传漂变、自然选择和杂交等过程引起的并发症，这些小样本可能产生误导性结果。一段时间以来，人们已经认识到，理想的解决方案是使用整个基因组中采样的大量遗传位点来构建系统发育，但这种方法的成本令人望而却步。利用两组具有不同繁殖模式和物种形成速度的鸟类，本研究将测试一种新的“下一代”测序方法的有效性，该方法是一种低成本的解决方案，可以从相关物种中恢复和测序基本上相同的数千个遗传位点。系统发育树对于理解地球上生命的惊人多样性和进化历史至关重要。这项研究评估的潜在强大的新工具可能会引起广泛的兴趣，因为它应该适用于几乎任何生物体，几乎不需要修改，并且将产生比目前最好的研究大几个数量级的数据集。

DNA sequences are now routinely used to reconstruct the branching evolutionary relationships among species, often displayed graphically as a phylogenetic tree. Phylogenetic trees are often based on just one or a few genetic loci, each representing a very small portion of the full genetic complement of a species. These small samples may produce misleading results due to complications arising from processes such as random genetic drift, natural selection, and hybridization. For some time, it has been recognized that the ideal solution would be to construct phylogenies using a large number of genetic loci sampled throughout the genome, but the cost of this approach has been prohibitive. Using two groups of bird species with different modes of reproduction and rates of speciation, this research will test the efficacy of a new "next-generation" sequencing method as a low-cost solution for recovering and sequencing essentially the same set of thousands of genetic loci from related species.Phylogenetic trees are critical to understanding the phenomenal diversity and evolutionary history of life on earth. The potentially powerful new tool evaluated by this research is likely to be of broad interest as it should be applicable with little or no modification to almost any organism and will produce data sets orders of magnitude larger than in the best current studies.