Speaker: Jeremy M. Beaulieu, Biological Sciences, University of Arkansas.
Date: Monday, March 5th, 2018, 5:00PM-6:00PM
Location: SCEN 322
Title: Linking traits to patterns of species diversity: A primer on trait-dependent models of diversification.
Abstract: The distribution of diversity across the tree of life varies considerably from clade to clade. Attempts to understand these patterns often employ state-dependent speciation and extinction (SSE) models to determine whether the evolution of a particular novel trait has increased speciation rates and/or decreased extinction rates. It is still unclear, however, whether these models are uncovering important drivers of diversification, or whether they are simply pointing to more complex patterns involving many unmeasured and co-distributed factors. In this talk, I will describe the basic machinery of an SSE model and provide a primer on the recent criticisms levied against SSE models. I will then provide a new way forward by extending the popular state-dependent speciation and extinction models to account for the presence of unmeasured factors that could impact diversification rates estimated for the states of any observed trait. Specifically, my model, which I refer to as HiSSE (Hidden-State Speciation and Extinction), uses a Hidden Markov approach to relate to observed state in the model with “hidden” states that exhibit potentially distinct diversification dynamics and transition rates than the observed states in isolation.
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