A Mathematical Primer Of Molecular Phylogenetics

This volume, A Mathematical Primer of Molecular Phylogenetics, offers a unique perspective on a number of phylogenetic issues that have not been covered in detail in previous publications. The volume provides sufficient mathematical background for young mathematicians and computational scientists, as well as mathematically inclined biology students, to make a smooth entry into the expanding field of molecular phylogenetics. The book will also provide sufficient details for researchers in phylogenetics to understand the workings of existing software packages used. The volume offers comprehensive but detailed numerical illustrations to render difficult mathematical and computational concepts in molecular phylogenetics accessible to a variety of readers with different academic background. The text includes examples of solved problems after each chapter, which will be particularly helpful for fourth-year undergraduates, postgraduates, and postdoctoral students in biology, mathematics and computer sciences. Researchers in molecular biology and evolution will find it very informative as well.

Table of contents

Phylogenomics: A Primer, Second Edition is for advanced undergraduate and graduate biology students studying molecular biology, comparative biology, evolution, genomics, and biodiversity. This book explains the essential concepts underlying the storage and manipulation of genomics level data, construction of phylogenetic trees, population genetics, natural selection, the tree of life, DNA barcoding, and metagenomics. The inclusion of problem-solving exercises in each chapter provides students with a solid grasp of the important molecular and evolutionary questions facing modern biologists as well as the tools needed to answer them.

"This book arises from the Mathematics of Evolution & Phylogenetics meeting at the Mathematical Institute Henri Poincare, Paris, in June 2005 and is based on ... reports presented by keynote speakers"--Back cover.

This book presents and explains modern statistical methods and computational algorithms for the comparative analysis of genetic sequence data in the fields of molecular evolution, molecular phylogenetics, statistical phylogeography, and comparative genomics. The book offers numerous examples of real data analysis and numerical calculations to illustrate the theory, in addition to the working problems at the end of each chapter. The coverage of maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods are in particular up-to-date, comprehensive, and authoritative.

This book serves as a brief introduction to phylogenetic trees and molecular evolution for biologists and biology students. It does so by presenting the main concepts in a variety of ways: first visually, then in a history, next in a dice game, and finally in simple equations. The content is primarily designed to introduce upper-level undergraduate and graduate students of biology to phylogenetic tree reconstruction and the underlying models of molecular evolution. A unique feature also of interest to experienced researchers is the emphasis on simple ways to quantify the uncertainty in the results more fully than is possible with standard methods.

During the last ten years, remarkable progress has occurred in the study of molecular evolution. Among the most important factors that are responsible for this progress are the development of new statistical methods and advances in computational technology. In particular, phylogenetic analysis of DNA or protein sequences has become a powerful tool for studying molecular evolution. Along with this developing technology, the application of the new statistical and computational methods has become more complicated and there is no comprehensive volume that treats these methods in depth. Molecular Evolution and Phylogenetics fills this gap and present various statistical methods that are easily accessible to general biologists as well as biochemists, bioinformatists and graduate students. The text covers measurement of sequence divergence, construction of phylogenetic trees, statistical tests for detection of positive Darwinian selection, inference of ancestral amino acid sequences, construction of linearized trees, and analysis of allele frequency data. Emphasis is given to practical methods of data analysis, and methods can be learned by working through numerical examples using the computer program MEGA2 that is provided.

As researchers have pursued biology's secrets to the molecular level, mathematical and computer sciences have played an increasingly important roleâ€"in genome mapping, population genetics, and even the controversial search for "Eve," hypothetical mother of the human race. In this first-ever survey of the partnership between the two fields, leading experts look at how mathematical research and methods have made possible important discoveries in biology. The volume explores how differential geometry, topology, and differential mechanics have allowed researchers to "wind" and "unwind" DNA's double helix to understand the phenomenon of supercoiling. It explains how mathematical tools are revealing the workings of enzymes and proteins. And it describes how mathematicians are detecting echoes from the origin of life by applying stochastic and statistical theory to the study of DNA sequences. This informative and motivational book will be of interest to researchers, research administrators, and educators and students in mathematics, computer sciences, and biology.