2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/88494Sequence comparison across multiple organisms aids in the detection of regions under selection. However, resource limitations require a prioritization of genomes to be sequenced. This prioritization should be grounded in two considerations: the lineal scope encompassing the biological phenomena of interest, and the optimal species within that scope for detecting functional elements. We introduce a statistical framework for optimal species subset selection, based on maximizing power to detect conserved sites. In a study of vertebrate species, we show that the optimal species subset is not in general the most evolutionarily diverged subset. Our results suggest that marsupials are prime sequencing candidates.16 pages, 3 figures, 3 tablesGenomicsQuantitative Methodstext