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Conference Summary
Pacific Branch Entomological Society of America
Annual Meeting
March 25-28, 2007, Portland, OR
Jeffrey Oliver
PhD Candidate
Insect Science GIDP
I recently attended the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America in Portland, Oregon. I presented on a portion of my dissertation research on insect evolution. In addition to results specific to the system I study, I presented on new analytical methods that I developed. This meeting allowed me to present my work before an audience of experts in insect phylogeography, who provided valuable feedback on my results. I was also able to learn about others’ work from the numerous posters and presentations at the meeting. This exposure was crucial in understanding the future of the field and has aided in the development of ideas for my future research.
Specifically, this meeting allowed me to present analyses that I have developed for inferring evolutionary histories of species using DNA sequence data and coalescent simulations. Audience members suggested potential next steps for my work, and were eager to learn more about the methods I presented. The meeting helped refine my ideas for post-doctoral work, in which I would like to focus on developing methods of phylogeographical analysis based on coalescent simulations. Current methods lack means of assessing statistical significance for specific hypotheses, and I believe we now have the computing power to use permutation tests to make inferences more statistically rigorous.
The ESA meetings were an important experience that advanced my research ideas and I would like to thank the GIDP for providing me with this opportunity.
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