Genetic data collection, pedigrees, and phylogenies

Abstract

This chapter presents the role of genetic data in demographic studies. It focuses on two particular challenges faced in demographic analyses that can be solved using genetic data: estimating relatedness between individuals in a population and identifying drivers of cross-taxon variation in life history. The challenge of estimating relatedness is addressed with genetic pedigrees, and phylogenies allow comparisons of drivers of life history across taxa. These two different methods have several unifying features and histories. A past reliance on observational data in both cases limited taxonomic breadth of demographic analyses and reduced accuracy. With recent advances in genetic data collection and processing, in addition to improved computational methods, we are now in a position to use genetic data to expand demographic analyses across the Tree of Life. This chapter gives an overview of the whole process of constructing genetic pedigrees and reconstructing genetic phylogenies: beginning with the state-of-the-art, walking through the data collection steps required to obtain and process genetic material, and finishing with discussion and comparison of the diverse array of methods to construct genetic pedigrees and phylogenetic trees.