Research
My research interests are centered on evolutionary processes and the estimation of evolutionary trees.
Methodologically, I am most committed to the use of maximum likelihood and approaches that can be justified in a likelihood framework. In terms of data, I have worked with both morphological and molecular sequence data, but mostly with the latter. I am interested in animal phylogeny in general, but have been most involved with questions about mammalian evolution, particularly the biology and relationships of ‘insectivores’, a group whose integrity has always been problematic . Many of my research students have worked on insectivores in one way or another.
The selected publications below give an idea of some evolutionary interests over four decades.
Publications
- Weston, E.M., Friday, A.E. and Lio, P. (2007) Biometric evidence that sexual selection has shaped the hominin face. PLoS One 2(8): e710. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000710
- Yang, Z., Goldman, N. and Friday, A. (1995) Maximum likelihood trees from DNA sequences: a peculiar statistical estimation problem. Systematic Biology 44: 385-400.
- Bishop, M.J. and Friday, A.E. (1985) Evolutionary trees from nucleic acid and protein sequences. Proceedings of The Royal Society of London B 226: 271-302.
- Romero-Herrera, A.E., Lehmann, H., Joysey, K.A. and Friday, A.E. (1978) On the evolution of myoglobin. Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society of London B 283: 61-163.