Online phylogenetics seminar 2/5 9 AM PST: Fiona Jordan "Testing hypotheses about cultural evolution"

From phyloseminar.org home. Online phylogenetics seminar 2/5: Fiona Jordan "Testing hypotheses about cultural evolution"

From the website:
Anthropologists had a name for the non-independence-of-species-problem way back in the 1880s. Solving "Galton's Problem", and the promise of comparative methods for testing hypotheses about cultural adaptation and correlated evolution was a major catalyst for the field of cultural phylogenetics. In this talk I will show how linguistic, cultural, and archaeological data is used in comparative phylogenetic analyses. The "treasure trove of anthropology" - our vast ethnographic record of cultures - is now being put to good use answering questions about cross-cultural similarities and differences in human social and cultural norms in a rigorous evolutionary framework.

West Coast USA:
09:00 (09:00 AM) on Tuesday, February 05

East Coast USA:
12:00 (12:00 PM) on Tuesday, February 05

UK:
17:00 (05:00 PM) on Tuesday, February 05

France:
18:00 (06:00 PM) on Tuesday, February 05

Japan:
02:00 (02:00 AM) on Wednesday, February 06

New Zealand:
06:00 (06:00 AM) on Wednesday, February 06

Phyloseminar: ""Language phylogenies and cultural evolution" Online 1/16 2 PM PST

From phyloseminar.org home

"Language phylogenies and cultural evolution"

Simon Greenhill (Australian National University)

"Charles Darwin famously noted that there were many curious parallels between the evolution of species and languages. Since then evolutionary biology and historical linguistics have used trees to conceptualise evolution. However, whilst evolutionary biology developed the vast discipline of phylogenetic methods, linguistics dabbled with computational methods before rejecting them. The last decade or so has seen the introduction of phylogenetic methods into linguistics, often with some startling results. In this talk I will present some of these studies, and discuss how phylogenetics can help us grapple with the problems of linguistic and cultural evolution. These problems range from testing population dispersal hypotheses, to investigating the shape of cultural evolution, to inferring the rates at which languages change.

West Coast USA:14:00 (02:00 PM) on Wednesday, January 16
East Coast USA:17:00 (05:00 PM) on Wednesday, January 16
UK:22:00 (10:00 PM) on Wednesday, January 16
France:23:00 (11:00 PM) on Wednesday, January 16
Japan:07:00 (07:00 AM) on Thursday, January 17
New Zealand:11:00 (11:00 AM) on Thursday, January 17

Upcoming on phyloseminar "Inferring macroevolutionary processes based on phylogenetic trees"

See phyloseminar.org home for more detail.

Next talk

Inferring macroevolutionary processes based on phylogenetic trees"

Tanja Gernhard Stadler (ETH Zurich)

Phylogenetic trees of present-day species allow inference of the rate of speciation and extinction which led to the present-day diversity. Classically, inference methods assume a constant rate of diversification, or neglect extinction. I will discuss major limitations of this null model and will present a new framework which allows speciation and extinction rates to change through time (environmental-dependent diversification), with the number of species (density-dependent diversification), and with a trait of a species (trait-dependent diversification). For the latter model, particular focus is given to the trait being the age of a species. Issues arising in empirical data analysis, such as incomplete taxon sampling, model selection, and confidence interval estimation, will be discussed. The methods reveal interesting macroevolutionary dynamics for mammals, birds and ants, and can easily be applied to other datasets using the R packages TreePar and TreeSim available on CRAN.

West Coast USA: 10:00 (10:00 AM) on Wednesday, September 19

East Coast USA: 13:00 (01:00 PM) on Wednesday, September 19

UK: 18:00 (06:00 PM) on Wednesday, September 19

France: 19:00 (07:00 PM) on Wednesday, September 19

Japan: 02:00 (02:00 AM) on Thursday, September 20

New Zealand: 05:00 (05:00 AM) on Thursday, September 20

Coming up on http://phyloseminar.org Jason Stajich (aka @hyphaltip) #fungi #genomics

Upcoming seminar on Phyloseminar.Org

Jason Stajich speaks Wednesday, June 29th at noon PST on "Fungal phylogenomics: Getting lost in the moldy forest."
Fungi occupy diverse ecological niches in roles from nutrient cycling in rainforest floors to aggressive plant and animal pathogens. Molecular phylogenetics has helped resolve many of branches on the Fungal tree of life and enabling studies of evolution across this diverse kingdom. The genome sequences from hundreds of fungi now permit the study of change in genes and gene content in this phylogenetic context and to connect molecular evolution with adaptation to ecological niches or changes in lifestyles. I will describe our work in studies contrasting pathogenic and non-pathogenic fungi and efforts to unravel the evolution of multicellularity in fungi comparing unicellular basal fungi with multicellular mushrooms and molds.
The development of tools for data mining and use of fungal genomics is also driving the pace of molecular biology and genetics of fungi. I will highlight new approaches to make this easier and the ways data integration can inform and transform studies of functional biology of fungi.

Japan	04:00 (04:00 AM) on Thursday, June 30
New Zealand	07:00 (07:00 AM) on Thursday, June 30
West Coast USA	12:00 (12:00 PM) on Wednesday, June 29
East Coast USA	15:00 (03:00 PM) on Wednesday, June 29
England	20:00 (08:00 PM) on Wednesday, June 29
France	21:00 (09:00 PM) on Wednesday, June 29

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If you can't make it, don't fret-- you can always watch the recording