In the early days of the study of evolution the evidence was primatily empirical. There was no underlying theory or undestanding of how changes came about. It is amazing to me that Darwin and Wallace were able to integrate their findings into a generalized theory that has stood the test of time so well.

In recent years the bioinformatics people have been able to look at the basic DNA structure of species and determine changes that earlier observers just observed externally. Needless to say, this is a science that is itself rapidly evolving as more and more genomes are analyzed.

This book came about as the result of a conference organized at the Institut Henri Poincare that was held in Paris in June of 2003. Each of the major presenters were asked to write survey chapters based on the research they had presented with the aim of compiling a compact summary of the state-of-the art mathematical techniques and concepts currently used in the field of molecular phylogenetics and evolution.

This approach has produced a book that is timely when compared with a single author trying to understand each of these areas of research.