Integrating phylogenetics, phylogeography and population genetics through genomes and evolutionary theory

Evolutionary theory is primed to synthesize microevolutionary processes with macroevolutionary divergence by taking advantage of multilocus multispecies genomic data in the molecular evolutionary analysis of biodiversity. While coalescent theory bridges across timescales to facilitate this integration, it is important to appreciate the assumptions, caveats, and recent theoretical advances so as to most effectively exploit genomic analysis. Here I outline the connections between population processes and phylogeny, with special attention to how genomic features play into underlying predictions. I discuss empirical and theoretical complications, and solutions, relating to recombination and multifurcating genealogical processes, predictions about how genome structure affects gene tree heterogeneity, and practical choices in genome sequencing and analysis. I illustrate the conceptual implications and practical benefits of how genomic features generate predictable patterns of discordance of gene trees and species trees along genomes, for example, as a consequence of how regions of low recombination and sex linkage interact with natural selection and with the accumulation of reproductive incompatibilities in speciation. Moreover, treating population genetic parameters as characters to be mapped onto phylogenies offers a new way to understand the evolutionary drivers of diversity within and differentiation between populations. Despite a number of challenges conferred by genomic information, the melding of phylogenetics, phylogeography and population genetics into integrative molecular evolution is poised to improve our understanding of biodiversity at all levels. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.