Phylogenetics of the Scrub Mint Clade (Lamiaceae)
I used my target-capture nuclear loci dataset to analyze relationships in this flowering plant clade to better understand the biogeography of the group and answer questions regarding geographic range evolution across the physical landscape. I generated a dated phylogeny using a target enrichment/capture dataset, used the phylogeny to detect upward shifts in diversification rates across the timeline of the clade, and then calculated ancestral area using biogeographic models. I also reconstructed ancestral potential ranges at each node based on ancestral niche reconstructions and paleoclimatic data in order to understand geographic range evolution of subclades.I also used my dataset to address questions of evolutionary relationships and ancestral character states for key morphological features for the clade. I calculated gene tree concordance for every node along the tree using phytools (of interest since past analyses have had incongruent topologies using molecular/morphological datasets) and ancestral character states (corolla shape, woodiness, leaf type, flower abundance) using ML methods.