Graduate Research Symposium 2009 - Revision history

VanessaBoukili at 17:39, 20 March 2009

2009-03-20T17:39:39Z

AdamWilson at 13:07, 19 March 2009

2009-03-19T13:07:25Z

NicTippery at 12:17, 19 March 2009

2009-03-19T12:17:19Z

RachelPrunier at 00:45, 19 March 2009

2009-03-19T00:45:21Z

RachelPrunier at 00:41, 19 March 2009

2009-03-19T00:41:12Z

AdamWilson at 16:37, 18 March 2009

2009-03-18T16:37:27Z

AdamWilson at 16:16, 18 March 2009

2009-03-18T16:16:23Z

DanielFan at 19:19, 17 March 2009

2009-03-17T19:19:05Z

AlejandroRicoGuevara at 14:06, 17 March 2009

2009-03-17T14:06:11Z

DanielFan at 19:33, 16 March 2009

2009-03-16T19:33:16Z

@@ Line 71: / Line 71: @@
 <br>
 Plant functional traits and patterns of community assembly during natural rain forest regeneration <br>
-Insert Abstract Here...<br>
+	The global reduction in tropical old-growth forests urges a more complete understanding of how these forests can regenerate following disturbance.  Plant functional traits are morphological and physiological characteristics of species which will likely illuminate successional pathways due to their importance in plant performance.  Community level measures of functional trait values are valuable in assessing mechanisms of community assembly during secondary forest regeneration. Preliminary results of functional traits from dominant species in one secondary and one mature forest at La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica show predicted trends of community assembly in functional traits.  Further research will clarify patterns and elucidate conservation and management strategies.<br>
 <span id="NAME">'''Frank Smith'''</span>

@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 | 11:15-11:30  || Lori Benoit || Phylogenetic relationships and genetic diversity of the invasive aquatic angiosperm ''Hydrilla verticillata'' (l.f.) Royle (Hydrocharitaceae)
 |-
-| 11:30-11:45  || Adam Wilson || Fire, climate & biomass from space
+| 11:30-11:45  || Adam Wilson || Fire, climate & biomass (from space)
 |-
 | 11:45-12:00  ||Nicholas Tippery || But will it float? Evolution of inflorescence architecture in ''Nymphoides'' (Menyanthaceae)
@@ Line 101: / Line 101: @@
 <span id="NAME">''' Adam Wilson '''</span>
 <br>
-Fire, climate, & biomass from space <br>
+Fire, climate, & biomass (from space) <br>
 The U.S. Climate Change Science Program has recognized the need to understand the ecological impacts of global climate change on phenology and disturbance regimes (such as fire). In the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, analysis of the historical (1980-2006) fire record reveals that increased temperatures and decreased precipitation increases fire probability and that the mean fire return time has shortened by four years since 1950.  But before we can make projections about future fire regimes under a different climate, we must understand how biomass (fuel load) accumulation is also affected by climate change.  We show that remotely sensed data can be used to monitor post-fire biomass accumulation in this system, which opens possibilities to use the satellite data archive to investigate how biomass accumulation rates are affected by weather.

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 <br>
 But will it float? Evolution of inflorescence architecture in ''Nymphoides'' (Menyanthaceae) <br>
-Insert Abstract Here...<br>

@@ Line 133: / Line 133: @@
 sexually dimorphic weapons employed in fights for resources.<br>
-<span id="NAME">''' Name here...'''</span>
+<span id="NAME">''' Rachel Prunier'''</span>
 <br>
-Title <br>
+Pelargonium community structure in South Africa: The influence of phylogeny,
-Insert Abstract Here...<br>
+body plan and climate. <br>
 ----
 [[Category:Graduate Research Symposium]]
 [[Category:Graduate Student Resources]]

@@ Line 48: / Line 48: @@
 | 2:15-2:30  || Alejandro Rico Guevara || Evolutionary Insights About Nectarivores’ Bills Structures
 |-
-| 2:30-2:45  || ||
+| 2:30-2:45  || Rachel Prunier || Pelargonium Community Structuring
 |-
 !style="background:#efefef;" | 2:45-3:00  || || '''Speed Talks'''

@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 | 10:00-10:15  ||Kerri Mocko ||In the South African veld: solar tracking and temperatures in contrasting leaf shapes of ''Pelargonium''
 |-
-| 10:15-10:30  ||Yu(Daniel) Fan ||
+| 10:15-10:30  ||Yu(Daniel) Fan || A conditional autoregressive (CAR) model for detecting site dependence in evolution of DNA sequences
 |-
 !style="background:#efefef;"| 10:30-11:00  ||  || '''Morning Break - Drinks and Fruit'''
@@ Line 85: / Line 85: @@
 <span id="NAME">'''Yu(Daniel) Fan'''</span>
 <br>
-Title <br>
+A conditional autoregressive (CAR) model for detecting site dependence in evolution of DNA sequences <br>
-Insert Abstract Here...<br>
+ABSTRACT: Most methods for phylogenetic analysis assume that every site in a DNA sequence evolves independently. However, this assumption is violated in many cases, especially for DNA sequences coding for proteins and those with secondary or tertiary structure after transcription. Although the auto-discrete-gamma model and hidden Markov-chain model implemented separately by Yang (1995a) and Felsenstein and Churchill (1996) allow rates to be correlated across adjacent sites, they cannot model more complex correlation scenarios. Here, we describe an approach to modeling the dependence of evolutionary rates among DNA sequence sites using a conditional autoregressive (CAR) model. CAR models allow a priori knowledge of a molecule's secondary or tertiary structure to be used for explaining the correlated evolution in them, and are capable of being extended to many situations involving spatial  correlations. We implemented the model in a fully Bayesian approach, with all parameters of the model considered as random variables. The marginal likelihood is calculated by Steppingstone sampling for comparing the CAR model with alternative models.