Dr Simone Blomberg
Dr

Simone Blomberg

Email: 
Phone: 
+61 7 336 52506

Background

Methods and applications of statistics in evolutionary biology and population ecology.

My research involves the application and development of statistical methods in ecology, evolutionary biology, and general whole-organism biology. My two particular research foci are phylogenetic comparative methods and other uses of statistics in ecology, evolution, and systematics. I also have a strong interest in the application of Bayesian methods, and the statistical philosophy of the nature of evidence in whole-organism biology. How and why do scientists agree that certain data are evidence for or against a particular hypothesis?

I also provide a statistical consultation service for staff and students within the School of the Environment.

I am interested in taking graduate students at any level who are interested in quantitative methods in biology. Students in my lab will be able to (or be willing to learn) program computers in S (http://www.r-project.org), a compiled language such as C or Fortran, and/or a scripting language such as Python or Scheme in a Unix environment. Students are also encouraged to extend or develop their mathematical skills. A background in biology, statistics, mathematics, or computer science would be valuable. I can also co-supervise students who are interested in using quantitative methods for their thesis work, but for whom such methods are not a primary focus of research.

Availability

Dr Simone Blomberg is:
Available for supervision
Media expert

Fields of research

Ecology Environmental Sciences Zoology

Research interests

  • Models of Quantitative Trait Evolution

    Macroevolution lacks mathematical theory. I am trying to develop new models of evolution and apply them to real data sets in order to bring the study of macroevolution into the 21st century. I concentrate on the use of diffusion processes as evolutionary models. Diffusions are a broad class of processes that have applications in finance, physics, and other quantitative disciplines. Their use in evolutionary studies has been at a fairly basic level, mainly using Brownian motion and the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. These two processes are simple but are not very realistic descriptions of how evolution occurs. I aim to provide more, better models together with methods to fit them to real data.

Search Professor Simone Blomberg’s works on UQ eSpace

121 works between 1991 and 2026
All (121) Journal Article (113) Other Outputs (1) Conference Publication (5) Book Chapter (2)

121 - 121 of 121 works

1991

Journal Article

The High Intracellular Ph Buffering of Hagfish (eptatretus-Cirrhatus) Dental Plate Retractor Muscle Cannot Be Attributed to the Known Histidine-Related Compounds Present in Other Vertebrates

Baldwin, J, Blomberg, S, Aguilar, M, Stanton, P and Hearn, Mtw (1991). The High Intracellular Ph Buffering of Hagfish (eptatretus-Cirrhatus) Dental Plate Retractor Muscle Cannot Be Attributed to the Known Histidine-Related Compounds Present in Other Vertebrates. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A-Physiology, 100 (3), 731-734. doi: 10.1016/0300-9629(91)90398-V

The High Intracellular Ph Buffering of Hagfish (eptatretus-Cirrhatus) Dental Plate Retractor Muscle Cannot Be Attributed to the Known Histidine-Related Compounds Present in Other Vertebrates

Current funding

  • 2022 - 2026
    Ancestral state reconstruction and the evolution of Australian marsupials (ARC Discovery Project administered by Queensland University of Technology)
    Queensland University of Technology
    Open grant

Past funding

  • 2020
    A new molecular/morphological view of animal evolution based on marsupials (ARC Discovery Project administered by Flinders University)
    Flinders University
    Open grant
  • 2017 - 2020
    A new molecular/morphological view of animal evolution based on marsupials
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2019
    The ecology of trace metal contamination in native Australian mammals
    ARC Linkage Projects
    Open grant
  • 2014 - 2019
    Fitting non-Gaussian diffusion models to evolutionary data: towards a generalized framework for phylogenetic comparative analyses.
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2012 - 2017
    Population fluctuations: models, mechanisms and management
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2008 - 2010
    Advances in Phylogenetic Comparative Methods.
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant

Availability

Dr Simone Blomberg is:
Available for supervision

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Available projects

  • Models of Evolution and the Fossil Record

    Current theory suggests that including fossils in macroevolutionary studies greatly improves the identifiability of models. However, it is not known how many fossils are necessary, where they should be placed in the tree (near the tips or near the root?), and how this interacts with tree shape and tree size. Also, are the fossils more important for ancestral character recosntruction, hypothesis testing, or model selection? This project will examine these factors in detail using simulations, with the possibility of examining case studies of taxa with good fossil records.

Supervision history

Current supervision

Completed supervision

Enquiries

Contact Dr Simone Blomberg directly for media enquiries about:

  • Ecology - statistics
  • Evolution - statistics
  • Statistics - ecology, evolution
  • taxonomy

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