Department of Statistics Seminar
North Carolina State University

presents

Dr. Chris Field

Dalhousie University

"Confidence Regions for Phylogenetic Trees"

ABSTRACT

In phylogenetic analysis, we are interested in constructing a tree to represent the evolutionary history of a set of taxa based on DNA or amino acid sequence data. There are a number of different methods for obtaining estimates of the tree topology including maximum likelihood and distance methods. Given the estimate, it is important to determine whether other topologies are also consonant with the data. Will look at basic ideas of constructing confidence regions. Next step will be to consider several methods commonly used for confidence regions of trees and to examine their performance. As we will see, the confidence regions can vary significantly depending on the procedure used and it is important to understand the underlying principles used for the competing methods.

Friday, April, 05, 2002

3:35 - 4:35 pm

206 Cox Hall

Refreshments will be served on the second floor of Dabney Hall (left of Room 222) at 3:00 pm.