Bayesian Nonparametric Estimation of Demographic Histories: A Phylodynamic Approach

• Activity Number: 352
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Bayesian Statistical Science
• Author(s): Julia Palacios*+ and Vladimir N Minin
• Companies: University of Washington and University of Washington
• Keywords: Coalescent ; Phylodynamics ; Gaussian processes

Abstract

The coalescent with variable population size is a popular model for the estimation of population size trajectories from gene sequence data. In order to add as much flexibility as possible in terms of the shape of the population trajectory, Gaussian process-based Bayesian nonparametric methods have been recently developed. However, in nearly all molecular data-based demographic analyses, the analysis does not end at estimating population dynamics. Often, one is interested in demonstrating that some other temporal process correlate with the population size fluctuations. We develop a Gaussian process-based framework that enable practitioners to put their hypotheses about relationships between other temporal processes and the population size trajectory into a rigorous quantitative framework.