B1353
Title: Recent advances in the phylogenetic comparative methods
Authors: Yusaku Ohkubo - Okayama University (Japan) [presenting]
Abstract: One of the centric issues in macrobiology is to evaluate how biodiversity is affected by environmental change. This is of particular interest because of the global climate change. It poses, however, statistical difficulties because all the organisms have evolved from a common ancestor and thus have autocorrelation between species based on their evolutionary closeness: evolutionary close species tend to have similar traits (e.g. shape, size, behaviour). The methodologies that adjust this closeness are called phylogenetic comparative methods and are now active research topics in microbiology. The background of such methodologies is given, and recent advancement of statistical approach is introduced. The remaining problems are also discussed.
