UW Aquatic & Fishery Sciences Quantitative Seminar

Joe Felsenstein

Department of Genome Sciences and Department of Biology

Using quantitative genetics to model changes of a discrete 0/1 character between species

Abstract

Morphological or behavioral data sometimes comes in discrete states rather than continuous measurements. To model change on a phylogeny, it has become common to treat the states of a 0/1 character as if they were different DNA bases. In a recent paper in American Naturalist, I have suggested instead using an old model by Sewall Wright, the Threshold Model. This is computationally tedious as it needs MCMC methods, but it has some great advantages. Let me tell you about it.