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Lanfear Group - Mutation, molecular evolution and phylogenetics
Our work is motivated by the desire to understand molecular evolution, from the origin of mutations in individuals to their fixation in evolving lineages. To achieve this, we combine genome sequencing, phylogenetics, comparative methods, evolutionary theory, and bioinformatics.
For more information, please take a look at our lab website.
Group Leader
Divisional Visitors
Masters Students
PhD Students
You can find our publications on
Genomics software a weapon of choice in war against COVID-19
Story | Wednesday 19 July 2023
Dr Robert Lanfear of the ANU Research School of Biology and Dr Minh Bui, from the College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics (CECC) are finalists for the 2023 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research Software.
Rob Lanfear
Story | Thursday 29 September 2016
The thing I enjoy the most about teaching is that it makes learning new things a key part of my job.
E&E PhD Exit Seminar: The treelikeness assumption: Investigating conflicting signal in the animal tree of life
Event | Fri 15 December 2023
Phylogenetics is the science of reconstructing the evolutionary history of groups of species or individuals. Most phylogenetic methods include the treelikeness assumption, which states that every site in an alignment shares an identical evolutionary history.
RSB Director's Seminar: Models and truth in phylogenomics
Event | Mon 18 September 2023
How do you estimate a good phylogeny? Phylogenetic trees form the backbone of much of our understanding of evolution, so it's important we try to get them right
E&E PhD Exit Webinar: Systematic bias in phylogenetic inference: Implications, Assessment, and Reduction
Event | Fri 17 December 2021
Phylogenetic inference is the process of reconstructing relationships between species from genomic sequence data. The reliability of phylogenetic analysis relies on the quality of the data and the fitness of the substitution models.
E&E Joint Webinar: Some benefits of blue sky and open phylogenetics research for understanding SARS-CoV-2
Event | Thu 9 July 2020
Having spent much of the last 15 years trying to improve molecular phylogenetics, I had formed the fairly firm view that my research was very interesting (of course!!!) but rather useless in the short term.
E&E Joint Webinar: Walking in Wallacea: Expanding the species inventory on Buton Island, Sulawesi
Event | Thu 9 July 2020
The central islands of Indonesia, between Java, Bali and Kalimantan (Borneo) on the west and Papua on the east - are a living laboratory for the study of evolution, known as the Wallacea region.
IQ-TREE: Novel methods for phylogenetic inference
Event | Tue 17 April 2018
In this talk I will present three new computational methods for phylogenetics: (i) a fast and accurate model selection approach (ModelFinder), (ii)
