Optimal Point Process Filtering and Estimation of the Coalescent Process

The coalescent process is an important and widely used model for inferring the dynamics of biological populations from samples of genetic diversity. Coalescent analysis typically involves applying statistical methods to either samples of genetic sequences or an estimated genealogy in order to estimate the demographic history of the population from which the samples originated. Several parametric and non-parametric estimation techniques, employing diverse methods, such as Gaussian processes and Monte Carlo particle filtering, already exist. However, these techniques often trade estimation accuracy and sophistication for methodological flexibility and ease of use. Thus, there is room for new c