Long-term Sabbatical

Incorporation of all maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses currently performed by paup*4b10 into phycas.

PI(s): Paul Lewis (University of Connecticut)
Start Date: 1-Jan-2006
End Date: 31-May-2006
Keywords: phylogenetics, software, maximum likelihood

In collaboration with Mark Holder and David Swofford, I will spend Spring semester 2006 at NESCENT developing PHYCAS, an open-source phylogenetic analysis package that will provide much of the functionality in the software produced by the NSF-funded CIPRES project (www.phylo.org). Specifically, my goal for Spring 2006 is to add the maximum likelihood capabilities currently available in PAUP* 4b10 to PHYCAS. This will provide freely-available, opensource software for maximum likelihood analyses under the most commonly used nucleotide sequence models. In addition, I will work with Jeffrey Thorne at nearby NC State to implement correlated rates models useful in divergence time estimation.