EEB462H1: Phylogenetic Systematics

The Tree of Life metaphor for evolutionary relationships among species, phylogenies, is now fundamental in biology. Phylogenetic trees are now used both in species classification and to investigate myriad biological hypotheses about the evolutionary process and applied problems like virus and cancer epidemiology. This course will train students in the concepts and core methods of phylogenetic tree inference, including parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian techniques. Students will gain bioinformatics skills with application to DNA sequence analysis and phylogenetic tree inference. Through a combination of lectures, discussion, and computer labs, students will master theory and practice of phylogenetic tree construction and inference.