Our weekly lunch seminar series features internal speakers in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology. This seminar will be in-person and live-streaming on Zoom.

Virtual Access: Please email eebsemaccess@umich.edu two hours prior to the event for the passcode.

TALK TITLE:
Developing frameworks for correlated character evolution in phylogenetic comparative modelling

PREVIEW:
The astounding diversity of life is the result of billions of years of evolution. And while the results of evolutionary change are evident in the world around us, the underlying processes that generated them are yet to be fully revealed. Hypotheses about how these processes play out over millions of years are often tested with phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs). PCMs combine present-day observations with knowledge of how species are related to one another to test hypotheses of unobserved evolutionary change. However, major methodological gaps exist both in terms of outstanding problems within current models and limitations to the types of datasets that are even analyzable. In this talk I will outline some of the challenges facing models of correlated character evolution and discuss some possible solutions. I will end the talk by discussing the potential for Artificial Intelligence to help understand the evolution of highly complex characters.