Combinatorics of evolution

Abstract:

In the 161 years since Darwin’s Origin of Species, biologists have developed sophisticated ways to uncover and study the hidden shared ancestry of life from genomic data. While Darwin was able to formulate his ideas without using mathematics, he later wrote how he regretted not having studied that subject further. In this talk, I will explain how ideas from combinatorics and probability theory can answer some fundamental questions arising in the reconstruction and analysis of evolutionary (phylogenetic) trees and networks.

This is a seminar of the Combinatorial Mathematics Society of Australasia.

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