Deep Metazoan Phylogeny 2011
The international conference “Deep Metazoan Phylogeny 2011 – new data, new challenges" brings together mathematicians, theoreticians, molecular systematists, and morphologists that aim at resolving deep branches in the animal tree of life for a better understanding of the evolution and diversification of multicellular life on Earth.
During the conference, new data, new analytical tools and new results will be discussed. Challenges and pitfalls in phylogeny reconstruction based on molecular and/or morphological data will be identified, aiming for a critical and constructive view of the state of the art of the metazoan tree of life.
On behalf of the organising committee you are cordially invited to attend this conference, which will take place from 11-14 October 2011 at the University of Munich, Germany.
The meeting will consist of sessions with several invited leaders in the field and open sessions with short presentations. In addition, there will be ample space and time to present posters.
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Innovations in the analyses of molecular and morphological data
Keynote speakers:
Maria Anisimova (ETH Zürich): Fast and accurate evaluation of phylogenetic clade support
Alexis Stamatakis (HITS Heidelberg): Fishing in the dark: Trying to identify rogue taxa
Bastien Boussau (University of Lyon): Integrative models of genome evolution
Patrick Kück (University of Bonn): Detection of long branch artefacts in simulated and real data
Peter Stadler (University of Leipzig): Molecular morphology: higher order characters derived from sequence data
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Molecular phylogeny: new markers and phylogenomic analyses
Keynote speakers:
Gert Wörheide (University of Munich): Introduction: the status quo of higher-level metazoan phylogeny based on phylogenomic analyses
Hervé Philippe (Université de Montréal, Canada): Resolving difficult phylogenetic questions: why adding more sequences is not enough
Dennis Lavrov (Iowa State University, USA): Mitochondrial genomic diversity in non-bilaterian animals: implications for phylogeny and evolution
Kevin Peterson (Dartmouth College, USA): MicroRNAs and the Evolution of Metazoan Complexity
Bernhard Hausdorf (University of Hamburg): Phylogenomic relationships between lophotrochozoan phyla – phylogenetic signal versus systematic errors.
Björn von Reumont (University of Bonn): Discovering the evolution of arthropods: prospects and pitfalls of molecular methods including phylogenomic data
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The evidence found in morphology
Keynote speakers:
Stefan Richter (University of Rostock): The role of morphology in evolutionary research
Chris Lowe (Stanford University): Uncoupling morphological and molecular evolution: deep deuterostome origins of the vertebrate head developmental program
Ronald Jenner (Natural History Museum London): Please mind the gaps: exploring the limits of our understanding of animal body plan evolution
Manfred Laubichler (Arizona State University, USA): Reconstructing ancestors: the lessons from developmental evolution
Rudolf Loesel (University of Aachen): Reviewing neurophylogeny - advances since the turn of the millenium
Thomas Stach (Free University of Berlin): Phylogenetic patterns from morphogenetic processes
Distinguished evening lecture by Phil Donoghue (University of Bristol, UK): Reconciling fossils, molecules and morphology in deep metazoan phylogeny.
The conference is organised in cooperation with the Priority Program "Deep Metazoan Phylogeny" of the German Science Foundation (DFG). The project is a joint effort of more than 20 participating workgroups bringing together molecular, morphological and bioinformatic expertise with the goal to establish a (hopefully) robust backbone metazoan phylogeny. Details on the priority project "Deep Metazoan Phylogeny" can be found at http://www.deep-phylogeny.org.
Dates & Deadlines:
- Online registration for participation only (no more abstract submission) is possible until the conference!
Host organizations
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Paleontology & Geobiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich
- GeoBio-CenterLMU
- Bavarian State Collections of Palaeontology and Geology
