Research interests

Tempo and mode of molecular evolution
The use of genetic data to investigate evolutionary history is revolutionizing biology, across fields ranging from the origin of animals over half a billion years ago to the emergence of new viral diseases. But if the rate of molecular evolution can vary between species, can we trust molecular date estimates? I use a comparative approach to investigate aspects of a species biology, ecology or evolution that might influence rates of molecular evolution - such as body size, population size, social structure, rate of adaptation, speciation rate, parastism - in order to identify cases when molecular dates might be consistently error-prone.

Tempo and mode of animal body plan evolution
The sudden appearance of animal phyla in the fossil record in the early Cambrian has generated many theories of how such an apparently large amount of evolutionary change could occur in what appears to be a relatively short time. The description of key developmental genes that play fundamental roles in shaping phenotype have led to new ideas about the evolution of animal body plans. The increasing number of species for which genetic and developmental data is available allows these hypotheses about animal evolution to be tested in a phylogenetic context.

Selected publications (for a full publication list see www.tempoandmode.com):
Bromham L, Rambaut A, Harvey PH (1996) Determinants of rate variation in mammalian DNA sequence evolution. Journal of Molecular Evolution 43:610-621

Bromham L, Rambaut A, Fortey R, Cooper A, Penny D (1998) Testing the Cambrian explosion hypothesis by using a molecular dating technique. Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95:12386-9

Bromham LD, Phillips MJ, Penny D (1999) Growing up with dinosaurs: molecular dates and the mammalian radiation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 14:113-118

Bromham LD, Hendy MD (2000) Can fast early rates reconcile molecular dates to the Cambrian explosion? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 267:1041-1047

Bromham L, Clark F, McKee JJ (2001) Discovery of a novel murine type C retrovirus by datamining. Journal of Virology 75:3053-3057

Cardillo M, Bromham L (2001) Body size and risk of extinction in Australian mammals. Conservation Biology 15:1435-1440.

Bromham L (2002) The human zoo: endogenous retroviruses in the human genome. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 17:91-97

Bromham L, Woolfit M, Lee MSY, Rambaut A (2002) Testing the relationship between morphological and molecular rates of change along phylogenies. Evolution 56:1921-1930.

Bromham L, Penny D (2003) The modern molecular clock. Nature Reviews Genetics 4:216-224

Bromham L, Woolfit M. (2004) Explosive radiations and the reliability of molecular clocks: island endemic radiations as a test case. Systematic Biology 53(5):758-766.

Welch JJ, Bromham L. (2005) Molecular dating when rates vary. Trends Ecol. Evol. 20 (6): 320-327

Bromham L, Leys, R.   (2005) Sociality, population size and rate of molecular evolution. Mol. Biol. Evol 22(6):1393-1402.

Welch JJ, Fontanillas E, Bromham L. (2005) Molecular dates for the "Cambrian Explosion": the influence of prior assumptions. Syst Biol 54(4):13-19

Thomas JA, Welch JJ, Woolfit M, Bromham (2006) There is no universal molecular clock for invertebrates, but rate variation does not scale with body size. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (19): 7366-7371

Bromham, L., Cardillo, M. 2007. Primates follow the 'island rule': implications for interpreting Homo floresiensis . Biology Letters 3: 398-400.

Fontanillas, E., Welch, J.J., Thomas, J.A., Bromham, L. 2007. The influence of body size and net diversification rate on molecular evolution during the radiation of animal phyla. BMC Evolutionary Biology 7: 95.

Lanfear, R., Thomas, J.A., Welch, J.J., Brey, T., Bromham, L. 2007. Metabolic rate does not calibrate the molecular clock. PNAS 104: 15388-15393.

Bromham, L. 2008. Does nothing in evolution make sense except in the light of population genetics? Biology and Philosophy. DOI 10.1007/s10539-008-9146-6

Bromham, L. 2008. Reading the story in DNA: a beginner's guide to molecular evolution. Oxford University Press.

Bromham, L. 2008. Molecular Evolution: Patterns and Rates. In: Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (ELS). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester.

Bromham, L. 2008. Molecular Evolution: Rates. In: Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (ELS). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester.

Lanfear, R., Bromham, L. 2008. Statistical Tests between Competing Hypotheses of Hox Cluster Evolution. Systematic Biology 57(5): 708-718.

Welch, J.J., Bininda-Emonds, O.R.P., Bromham, L. 2008. Correlates of substitution rate variation in mammalian protein-coding sequences. BMC Evolutionary Biology 8: 53.

Bromham, L. 2009. Putting the 'bio' into bioinformatics. Biology Letters 5: 391-393.

Bromham, L. 2009. Why do species vary in their rate of molecular evolution? Biology Letters 5: 401-404.

Research Group
John Welch
Brett Calcott
Eric Fontanillas
Rob Lanfear
Jessica Thomas