Phylogenetics in Palaeobiology Workshop
In late 2019 I was asked to help lead a workshop at Nanjing University entitled Phylogenetics in Palaeobiology alongside Mike Benton and invited and hosted by Baoyu Jiang and Qingyi Tian. This workshop introduced the development and theory behind cladistics and gave experience in modern phylogenetic analysis.
Topics covered included:
- Cladistics
- homology and evolution
- defining and using characters
- assembling a cladistic matrix
- Phylogenetics
- building NEXUS files with Mesquite
- tree search algorithms
- parsimony analysis with PAUP*
- new technology searches with TNT
- support values and missing data
- tree anatomy and nomenclature
- molecular phylogenetics
- Macroevolution
- time-scaling trees
- independent contrasts
- trait evolution on phylogenies