Swapping Birth and Death: Symmetries and Transformations in Phylodynamic Models
OPEN ACCESS
Author / Producer
Date
2019-09
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
OPEN ACCESS
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
Stochastic birth–death models provide the foundation for studying and simulating evolutionary trees in phylodynamics. A curious feature of such models is that they exhibit fundamental symmetries when the birth and death rates are interchanged. In this article, we first provide intuitive reasons for these known transformational symmetries. We then show that these transformational symmetries (encoded in algebraic identities) are preserved even when individuals at the present are sampled with some probability. However, these extended symmetries require the death rate parameter to sometimes take a negative value. In the last part of this article, we describe the relevance of these transformations and their application to computational phylodynamics, particularly to maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods, as well as to model selection.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
68 (5)
Pages / Article No.
852 - 858
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Algebraic symmetries; Bayesian inference; birth–death models; maximum likelihood; phylodynamics; phylogenetics; speciation–extinction models
Organisational unit
09490 - Stadler, Tanja / Stadler, Tanja