Evolutionary inference from genomic data

The rapid accumulation of gene sequence data is allowing evolutionary infer ences of unprecedented resolution. In the area of population genetics, gene trees and polymorphism data are being used to study demographic parameters , in the area of comparative biology, the shapes of phylogenetic trees prov ide information about patterns of speciation, coevolution, and macroevoluti on. A variety of statistical methods have been developed for exploiting the information contained within organismal genomes. In this paper, we emphasi se the conceptual bases of the tests, rather than details of their implemen tation. BioEssays 1999;21:148-156. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.