Faculdade

Departamento

Training course: Phylogeny for Paleontology (March 12-13, 2016)

21-01-2016

A two day introductory course on parsimony-based phylogenetic analysis in paleontology and morphological studies, for students and proffesionals, to be held at the Departamento de Ciências da Terra, Universidade de Nova Lisboa.

Aim of the course: Phylogenetic analyses are a key tool for paleontologists. The aim of this course is to provide the participants the basic skills need to perform a morphological phylogenetic analysis and publish their  results. The basics of parsimony analysis and character optimisation will be covered.

Target public and credits: Open to anyone but targeted to students and professionals in evolutionary biology and paleontology. Diploma will be provided by FCT-UNL. This training can be included as supplement to the graduation or master diploma (accreditation still pending).

Instructors: Miguel Moreno Azanza and Octávio Mateus (FCT- University NOVA of Lisbon)

Requirements: All participants are required to bring their own laptop. Windows strongly recommended (MacOS versions of the software available but without user interface).

Dates and contents: The course will have three sessions, each with theoretical and practical lessons, plus and an additional optional workshop session to provide assistance with the attendees’ datasets. Total Hours of Training: 16h.

1st Day (March 12th)

Session 1: Introduction to cladistic analysis using parsimony-based methods.

Introduction to systematics, basic concepts, how to build a matrix and best practices.

Session 2: Introduction to parsimony-based software.

Introduction to TNT: Editing your matrix. Basic Searches. Consensus trees. Branch support. Getting trees ready to publish.

2nd day (March 13th)

Session 3: Intermediate-level use of parsimony-based software.

Continuous characters and mixed matrices. Weighting characters. New technology searchers.  Constrained searches. Basic scripts. Other stuff TNT can do.

Session 4: Workshop: bring your matrix to the lab (optional).

Participants will be allowed to bring their matrices to the lab, to be examined in a collaborative approach by the class.

Language: English (translation into Portuguese is available if necessary)

Place: Departamento de Ciências da Terra, Building IX, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal

GPS Coordinates: 38.660734, -9.207075

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Departamento+de+Ciências+da+Terra,+DCT-FCT-UNL

Registration fees: Non student: 150 euros. Students of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Mestrado de Paleontologia and others): free. Other student: 30 euros. (student card is required). Payment is done at the beginning of the course.  

 

Registration: Send an email to: Miguel Moreno-Azanza (mmazanza@fct.unl.pt) including your name, email, professional situation, institution and where you learn about this course, until March, 1st.

Questions can be addressed to: mmazanza@fct.unl.pt