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A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there is an XML version available for digesting as well.
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Posts
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Blog Post number 4
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Blog Post number 3
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Blog Post number 2
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Blog Post number 1
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portfolio
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publications
Testing relationships between multiple regional features and biogeographic processes of speciation, extinction, and dispersal
Published in Systematic Biology, 2025
The spatial and environmental features of regions where clades are evolving are expected to impact biogeographic processes such as speciation, extinction, and dispersal. Any number of regional features (such as elevation, distance, area, etc.) may be directly or indirectly related to these processes. Here, we present an extensible Multifeature Feature-Informed GeoSSE (MultiFIG) model that allows for the simultaneous investigation of any number of regional features. We also demonstrate the application of MultiFIG with an empirical case study of the South American lizard genus Liolaemus.
Recommended citation: Swiston, S. K., & Landis, M. J. (2025). Testing relationships between multiple regional features and biogeographic processes of speciation, extinction, and dispersal. Systematic Biology, 74(2), 282–300.
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The Goldilocks effect drives plant diversification on middle-aged Hawaiian islands
Published in bioRxiv, 2025
Islands are ideal mesocosms for the study of dispersal, speciation, and extinction, but our understanding of insular radiations has long been limited by the difficulty of estimating the timing and tempo of island evolution in the absence of fossils. Here, we introduce a generalizable model for jointly inferring paleogeographically-informed biogeographic rates, ancestral species ranges, and divergence times, named TimeFIG. Using TimeFIG, we investigate the timing and tempo of evolution of Kadua, an ecomorphologically diverse but understudied plant genus in the coffee family (Rubiaceae).
Recommended citation: Lichter-Marck, I., Swiston, S. K., Mendes, F. K., May, M., Neupane, S., Rønsted, N., Baldwin, B., Wagner, W., Wood, K., Zapata, F., Landis, M. J. (2025). The Goldilocks effect drives plant diversification on middle-aged Hawaiian islands. bioRxiv.
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EMPIRE: The ellipse model for phylogenetic inference of range evolution
Published in bioRxiv, 2026
Here, we present the Ellipse Model for Phylogenetic Inference of Range Evolution (empire), which models the movement and splitting of species range ellipses in continuous space, summarizing important attributes of each range, such as its position, size, and orientation. We apply empire to the Australian Sphenomorphinae, a group of skinks whose diversification has coincided with substantial climatic change over the past ~36 million years.
Recommended citation: Swiston, S. K., McHugh, S., & Landis, M. J. (2025). EMPIRE: The ellipse model for phylogenetic inference of range evolution. bioRxiv. In review at: Systematic Biology
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Assessing the efficacy of computational workshops and participatory live coding in evolutionary biology
Published in bioRxiv, 2026
Computational workshops are common in evolutionary biology and are used to share discipline-specific tools and skills with researchers. Here, we focused on one key element of a successful workshop: its ability to increase participants’ motivation to use the methods and tools presented during the workshop. Overall, the workshop was successful at motivating participants, and survey responses provided insights into participants’ perceptions of different activities, including “participatory live coding”.
Recommended citation: Swiston, S. K., Kuehne, L., Moore, R., & Landis, M. J. (2025). Assessing the efficacy of computational workshops and participatory live coding in evolutionary biology. bioRxiv.
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talks
Talk 1 on Relevant Topic in Your Field
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Conference Proceeding talk 3 on Relevant Topic in Your Field
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teaching
Teaching experience 1
Undergraduate course, University 1, Department, 2014
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Teaching experience 2
Workshop, University 1, Department, 2015
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