title: Inferring species trees directly from biallelic genetic markers: bypassing gene trees in a full coalescent analysis.
abstract: The multispecies coalescent provides an elegant theoretical framework for estimating species trees and species demographics from genetic markers. However, practical applications of the multispecies coalescent model are limited by the need to integrate or sample over all gene trees possible for each genetic marker. Here we describe a polynomial-time algorithm that computes the likelihood of a species tree directly from the markers under a finite-sites model of mutation effectively integrating over all possible gene trees. The method applies to independent (unlinked) biallelic markers such as well-spaced single nucleotide polymorphisms, and we have implemented it in SNAPP, a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler for inferring species trees, divergence dates, and population sizes. We report results from simulation experiments and from an analysis of 1997 amplified fragment length polymorphism loci in 69 individuals sampled from six species of Ourisia (New Zealand native foxglove).
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics and the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. david.bryant@otago.ac.nz
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.forename: Remco
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bouckaert
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Felsenstein
authors.forename: Noah A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Rosenberg
authors.forename: Arindam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: RoyChoudhury
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000483:Alleles; D054458:Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis; D003198:Computer Simulation; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D004070:Digitalis / Q000235:genetics*; D017343:Genes, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D005819:Genetic Markers; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D009520:New Zealand; D010802:Phylogeny; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D005819:Genetic Markers