Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas L.), considered as the ancestor of cultivated trees in Arasbaran region, is a medicinally and economically plant species. However, little is known about genetic diversity, breeding programs, and population structure of this species in mentioned region. Keeping this in view, the main objectives of present study were to analysis the genetic diversity, phyloge...

In this paper we outline two debates about the nature of human cultural history. The first focuses on the extent to which human history is tree-like (its shape), and the second on the unity of that history (its fabric). Proponents of cultural phylogenetics are often accused of assuming that human history has been both highly tree-like and consisting of tightly linked lineages. Critics have poin...

The question 'what renders a species extinction prone' is crucial to biologists. Ecological specialization has been suggested as a major constraint impeding the response of species to environmental changes. Most neoecological studies indicate that specialists suffer declines under recent environmental changes. This was confirmed by many paleoecological studies investigating longer-term survival...

We introduce a conceptual bridge between the previously unlinked fields of phylogenetics and mathematical spatial ecology, which enables the spatial parameters of an emerging epidemic to be directly estimated from sampled pathogen genome sequences. By using phylogenetic history to correct for spatial autocorrelation, we illustrate how a fundamental spatial variable, the diffusion coefficient, c...

Mindell (2013) [henceforth simply “Mindell”] has provided a claim that the Tree of Life (ToL) is still useful in phylogenetics as a model, a metaphor, and a heuristic. Here I examine all three of these claims. Mindell noted that what biologists have long discussed as the ToL is in fact reticulate, and always has been. He therefore objected to simplistic declarations that there is no ToL, in the...

Background and Aims: Avian Influenza (AI) H9N2 subtype was first reported to infect turkeys in the United States in 1966 and has been panzootic in Europe and Asia. The impact of avian influenza caused by H9N2 viruses in Iran is now significantly more severe than in previous years. Methods: Sequence analysis and phylogenetic study of the complete coding region Polymerase A (PA) gene of H9N2 subt...

barley belongs to the poaceae which is the largest monocotyledon family. plastid single-copy gene acetyl-coa carboxylase (accase) is the first step in the biosynthesis of fatty acids and therefore, it is used to study the phylogenetic relationships, evolutionary and systematic of grasses. in this study, for the first time, phylogenetic relationship of eight species of hordeum genus from iran in...

Statistical consistency in phylogenetics has traditionally referred to the accuracy of estimating phylogenetic parameters for a fixed number of species as we increase the number of characters. However, it is also useful to consider a dual type of statistical consistency where we increase the number of species, rather than characters. This raises some basic questions: what can we learn about the...

Current approaches to studying the evolution of biodiversity differ in their treatment of species and higher level diversity patterns. Species are regarded as the fundamental evolutionarily significant units of biodiversity, both in theory and in practice, and extensive theory explains how they originate and evolve. However, most species are still delimited using qualitative methods that only r...

Bayesian Structural Phylogenetics