One of the most exciting developments in biology has been the ability to produce large amounts of sequence data. This has revolutionized the way in which we go about doing biology, and soon data collection will no longer be a rate limiting step. However with this boom of data comes questions about how to best apply them to answer evolutionary questions. Specifically with multiple genes being now sequenced the distinct possibility of incongruence has challenged the ways in which we go about defining a species in a phylogenetic context.
Traditionally gene trees were thought to be synonymous with species trees because we often didn’t have enough genes to posit alternative hypotheses. However it has become obvious that not all genes share a similar history, and processes such as incomplete lineage sorting, horizontal gene transfer, and gene duplication events can create havoc when trying to reconstruct a species tree.
I am currently working on several projects dealing with reconciling species trees from variable gene trees. For example, one project is generating a phylogeny of the damselfish genus Amblyglyphidodon using 11 genes. This project will be used to answer fundamental questions about the origin of marine biodiversity in the Pacific. Additionally, in conjunction with a project on the population genetics of A. leucogaster, I will be able to evaluate whether the evolutionary dynamics which impact lineage diversification at the genus level are also major drivers in population subdivision at the intraspecific level.
