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Brian C. O’Meara

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Research Interests

Phylogenetics is an efficient and intuitive approach for understanding biology. New methods provide powerful tools for understanding the processes leading to extant patterns of morphological, behavioral, biochemical, and species diversity as well as various types of interactions. The general focus of the research group is on developing and applying such methods. Past and ongoing work in the lab includes developing a method to test for different rates of trait evolution, investigating morphological and behavioral coevolution in Myrmecocystus ants, developing new methods for investigating discrete and continuous character correlation, developing a partitioned likelihood search program, analyzing supermatrices from Genbank, developing a joint estimator of species limits and the species tree, developing a method to test for different rates of gene loss, and more. People interested in joining the lab should see here.

Educations

  • 2008 – Ph.D., University of California, Davis

Selected Publications

  • Collar, D.C., B.C. O'Meara, P.C. Wainwright, and T.J. Near. (2009) Piscivory limits diversification of feeding morphology in Centrarchid fishes. Evolution 63(9): 1557-1573.
  • O'Meara, B.C., C. Ané, M.J. Sanderson, and P.C. Wainwright. (2006) Testing for different rates of continuous trait evolution using likelihood. Evolution 60(5): 922-933.
  • Driskell, A. C., C. Ané, J. G. Burleigh, M. M. McMahon, B. C. O'Meara, and M. J. Sanderson. (2004) Phylogenetic utility of large sequence databases for building the tree of life. Science 306(5699): 1172-1174.
Brian C. O'Meara

Contact Information

Brian C. O’Meara
Assistant Professor
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
569 Dabney Hall
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-1610

Email: bomeara@utk.edu