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Methods to infer diversification dynamics, biogeography and trait evolution are becoming increasingly (and infuriatingly) complex.

They are often so intricate that they require trees of hundreds or thousands of taxa, and so are not of much use unless you happen to work on megadiverse goups such as beetles.

Here, I propose a novel solution for inferring macroevolutionary patterns when your clades don’t have enough taxa, which avoids the pitfalls of other methods such as supertrees, supermatrices or meta-analyses.

Biography
Michael Lee grew up in Brisbane in the 1980s, catching lizards as a teenager while listening to the Go-Betweens. He received his B.Sc in Zoology from the University of Qld, and PhD in Zoology from the University of Cambridge.

He is interested in broad-scale patterns of evolution, such as major changes in body plan, or why some groups speciate much more rapidly than others. Reptiles are typically the research focus, though he also collaborates with workers on other groups such as birds, mammals and even arthropods. www.flinders.edu.au/people/mike.lee

Evolution, Ecology and Genetics Seminar Series