Evolutionary trees

Reconstruct evolutionary trees while representing prior knowledge and uncertainty in BEAST2. Lectures and tutorials explain prior selection, birth–death and coalescent models, fossil information, multispecies coalescence and rate variation across clades. Participants compare models and troubleshoot practical analyses, with time to develop their own datasets. The emphasis is on choosing and diagnosing complex models rather than treating software settings as a black box. Live Zoom sessions: 30 November; 2, 4, 7, 9 and 11 December, 15:00–18:30, Europe/Madrid (CET, UTC+01:00). Total 35 hours: 21

Use existing evolutionary trees to investigate ancestral traits, geographic histories and diversification. Participants edit, plot and time-scale phylogenies, reconstruct discrete and continuous characters, assess phylogenetic signal and compare models of trait evolution. Practical work introduces comparative methods, lineage-through-time plots and variation in diversification rates through Mesquite, FigTree and R packages. The course addresses dependence among species and evolutionary processes over deep time; reconstructing trees is outside its scope. Live sessions: 11, 13, 14, 18 and 20 Ja