Geoscience seminar 18.11. – Laura Säilä-Corfe

Hi All,

Laura Säilä-Corfe will give the geoscience seminar this week (abstract below):

Title:  AROUND THE WORLD IN 129 DOGS: A NEW GLOBAL FOSSIL CANID PHYLOGENY AND THE HISTORICAL PHYLOBIOGEOGRAPHY OF CANINAE

Time: Friday 18.11. at 14.15

Place: D114, Physicum, Kumpula campus

See the upcoming Geoscience seminars in https://wiki.helsinki.fi/display/geoseminar/Geoscience+Seminar

All are welcome!

Anu

 

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Abstract

The phylogenetic relationships of North American fossil Canidae have been subject to many recent studies but canids from other continents have received less attention. I present the results of the first ever combined evidence analysis (molecular and morphological characters) of global Canidae, with additional fossil taxa included a-priori based on expert opinion. Our analysis, using Beast 2.3.2 and the R package BEASTmasteR, includes 222 Canidae species (64 in subfamily Borophaginae, 29 in subfamily Hesperocyoninae, and 129 in subfamily Caninae). We also conducted a historical biogeographical analysis of subfamily Caninae using our tip-dated phylogeny, and distribution data from fossil databases (NOW and PBDB). Models that include “founder-event speciation” (speciation coincident with dispersal to a new region) appear to dominate, gaining over 99% of the AIC model weight. Newly developed BioGeoBEARS features will also allow us to estimate whether an absence of a fossil taxon from a certain region is a ‘true absence’ or just ‘absence of evidence’ based on the completeness of the fossil record, resulting in more robust biogeographical models.