Bayesian models for long-range population genetics

在物种进化问题上可以采取两种截然不同的观点。历史观点在于根据化石证据和分子序列比较重建所有活着的物种(生命之树)的进化史。这就是系统发育学的任务。最近，它推动了重要的统计努力，以便提供可靠的树重建。另一方面，人口统计学和机械论的观点更关心的是理解突变、选择和随机漂移之间的复杂相互作用如何决定现有物种的进化模式，一直到分子水平。它还试图理解一个物种所经历的生态因素(如其种群规模)如何影响这种相互作用。种群遗传学为这种理解提供了理论框架。经典的群体遗传学主要通过观察种内遗传多样性(多态)的分布来实现其目的。然而，人们逐渐认识到，也可以从系统发育学家进行的大规模比较分析中获得非常有价值的信息。这些信息没有从多态中获得的信息那么详细。然而，它可以追溯到更早的时间，增加了一种令人兴奋的可能性，即通过朗读它，人们可以重建生命之树上物种经历的基本生态因素的进化。

Two quite different perspectives can be taken on the problem of species evolution. The historical perspective consists in reconstructing the evolutionary history of all living species (the tree of life), based on fossil evidence and molecular sequence comparisons. This is the task of phylogenetics. Recently, it has motivated important statistical efforts so as to provide reliable tree reconstructions. The demographic and mechanistic perspective, on the other hand, is more concerned with understanding how the intricate interplay between mutation, selection and random drift determines the mode of evolution of extant species, down to the molecular level. It also tries to understand how the ecological factors experienced by a species (such as its population size) influence this interplay. Population genetics provides the theoretical framework for such an understanding. Classical population genetics achieves its aims mainly by observing the distribution of intra-specific genetic diversity (polymorphisms). However, it is progressively understood that very valuable information can also be derived from the large-scale comparative analyses performed by phylogeneticists. This information is less detailed than that derived from polymorphisms. However, it reaches much further back in time, raising the exciting possibility that by reading it out, one could reconstruct the evolution of essential ecological factors experienced by species along the tree of life.