The disappearing 'tree of life': The mathematics of extinction
Professor Mike Steel and Professor Charles Semple from the University of Canterbury will investigate mathematical models for extinction events in the tree of life
Life on Earth has been shaped by five mass extinction events over the last 500 million years. Unfortunately, human impacts on the natural world are precipitating a sixth. The diversity of life is modelled using ‘evolutionary trees,’ and each species that goes extinct is a branch ‘pruned’ from the tree. The harsh pruning of a mass extinction event leads to widespread loss of unique features and genetic diversity.
Professor Steel, Professor Semple and their international team will develop and apply new mathematical techniques and models to investigate the precise relationships between the different measures of biodiversity used to generate evolutionary trees. They will explore the extent to which extinction of species is linked to the loss of feature diversity, the key biodiversity measure targeted in conservation efforts. They will also develop and analyse more complex models of multiple species loss based on ‘extinction cascades’, investigating their impact on feature diversity loss.
This research will provide a mathematical and algorithmic framework for addressing some fundamental questions in biodiversity theory and conservation that are increasingly relevant during today’s climate and ecological crises.
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