Speaker
Description
Reticulate evolution is a major driver of genetic and phenotypic diversity in the natural world. With the proliferation of genomic data, interest in detecting historical reticulation has grown rapidly, coinciding with advances in statistical methods for identifying complex evolutionary histories. Phylogenetic networks provide a probabilistic framework for representing such processes (e.g., hybrid speciation and introgressive hybridization) and for uncovering historical connectivity and complex histories across life on our planet. In this talk, I present recent methodological advances for inferring phylogenetic networks from genome-scale data. I also discuss some challenges, methodological limitations, and future research directions in this field.