Applying evolutionary theory to biodiversity and conservation

我们感兴趣的是进化是如何在大范围内展开的。了解这一现象的一个窗口是生物体家族树的模式：这棵树是小的，只有很少的分支可以追溯到很久以前，还是大而紧凑，许多物种都彼此密切相关，还是树的某些部分是杂乱的，有些部分是浓密的？我们能看到物种形成率何时高，何时低吗？利用可公开获得的基因数据、化石数据和超级计算机，我们构建了大型树木（例如，世界上所有10000种鸟类，或世界上所有1000种鲨鱼和鳐鱼），然后将这些树木与模型预期进行比较，以检验特定的进化理论——例如，随着生态位的填补，多样性减慢，或者一些群体在全球变冷时期更频繁地形成物种，而另一些群体在全球变暖时期更频繁地形成物种。

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.