Refined Methods for Inference of Metazoan Phylogeny Using Mitochondrial Genome Arrangement Data

线粒体基因组对于系统发育重建来说是一个特别丰富的数据集。由于它们的大小有限，并且可获得大量的信息数据集，因此它们对于重建深部后生动物的系统发育特别感兴趣。我们的目标是通过应用新的进化模型和系统发育方法，以及通过获取和分析新的数据，为后生动物的系统发育树做出贡献。以已有的两种推测系统发育的方法为起点，即多重基因组重排和环比对，我们建议建立一个完善的线粒体基因组进化模型，并相应地开发能够从大数据集中推断系统发育的有效算法。我们项目的第二个主要部分是获取和分析线粒体基因组序列，旨在解决关于某些类群(包括半角动物、棘皮动物和脊索动物)之间的进化角色和关系的公开问题。

Mitochondrial genomes have been a particularly fruitful data set for phylogenetic reconstructions. Due to their limited size and the availability of a large number of informative data sets, they are particularly interesting for the reconstruction of deep metazoan phylogeny. We aim to contribute to a well-supported phylogenetic tree of the metazoa by applying new evolutionary models and phylogenetic methods as well as by acquiring and analyzing new data. Using two established methods for infering phylogenies as a starting point, namely multiple genome rearrangements as well as circular alignments, we propose to establish a refined model of mitochondrial genome evolution and correspondingly to develop efficient algorithms that are able to infer phylogenies from large data sets. A second major part of our project deals with acquiring and analyzing mitochondrial genome sequences, aiming to resolve open questions concerning the evolutionary roles and relationships between certain taxa such as Porifera, Placozoa, Cnidaria and Bilateria (including Hemichordata, Echinodermata and Chordata).