BioGeoBEARS - A Bayesian Approach to Biogeography

Auteur

Matzke is currently on a 3-year Discovery Early Career Award (DECRA) postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian National University in Canberra. He assumed this position after a two fellowship at the National Institute of Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) based at the University of Tennessee. His PhD is from the University of California Berkeley. Before starting at Berkeley he worked for the National Center for Science Education and was part of the Dover vs Kitzmiller team that successfully sued to remove creationist's textbook from public school curriculum.

Texte du rabat

This book explains the theory and practices of statistical model choice in general, and then explains how these can be applied in biogeography.

Résumé

Biogeography has been dominated by a dispersal versus vicariance debate. Users of computational methods, which included assumptions with respect to this debate, were often unaware of embedded assumptions. "BioGeoBEARS" (BioGeography with Bayesian (and likelihood) Evolutionary Analysis in R Scripts) is a new approach. Rather than choosing one model a priori, BioGeoBEARS uses multiple models, allowing researchers to perform model testing and model choice of the many different possible models of how current distributions come into being. This book explains the theory and practices of statistical model choice in general, and then explains how these can be applied in biogeography.

Key selling features: Introduces principles of statistical historical biogeographyPromotes the practical skills needed to run historical biogeography inference in RDistinguishes theory and the assumptions behind methodsProvides guidance to the creation of publication-quality graphicsReveals pitfalls and caveats associated with all biogeographic analysis

Contenu

Background: Goals of historical biogeography. A short history of historical biogeography methods. BioGeoBEARS overview and statistical model choice. Under the hood: likelihood calculations. Practical analysis in BioGeoBEARS. Diagramming biogeographic history: Interpreting graphics. Planning your own analyses. Advanced BioGeoBEARS. Common mistakes, caveats and assumptions. Counting events: Biogeographical Stochastic Mapping (BSM). New models: trait-based biogeography. The future of historical/phylogenetic biogeography.