Phylogenetics, macroevolution

2008 – Ph.D., University of California, Davis

Phylogenetics is an efficient and intuitive approach for understanding biology. New methods provide powerful tools for understanding the processes leading to extant patterns of morphological, behavioral, biochemical, and species diversity as well as various types of interactions. The general focus of the research group is on developing and applying such methods. Past and ongoing work in the lab includes developing a method to test for different rates of trait evolution, developing new methods for investigating discrete and continuous character correlation, developing a partitioned likelihood search program, analyzing supermatrices from Genbank, developing a joint estimator of species limits and the species tree, developing a method to test for different rates of gene loss, and more. People interested in joining the lab should see here: I am actively looking for PhD students, and over the past few years I have mentored nine postdocs, many through NIMBioS (which has multiple application deadlines per year).

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• Collar, D.C., B.C. O’Meara, P.C. Wainwright, and T.J. Near. (2009) Piscivory limits diversification of feeding morphology in Centrarchid fishes. Evolution 63(9): 1557-1573.
• O’Meara, B.C., C. Ané, M.J. Sanderson, and P.C. Wainwright. (2006) Testing for different rates of continuous trait evolution using likelihood. Evolution 60(5): 922-933.
• Driskell, A. C., C. Ané, J. G. Burleigh, M. M. McMahon, B. C. O’Meara, and M. J. Sanderson. (2004) Phylogenetic utility of large sequence databases for building the tree of life. Science 306(5699): 1172-1174.