10 research outputs found
Hierarchies from lowest stable ancestors in nonbinary phylogenetic networks
The reconstruction of the evolutionary history of a set of species is an important problem in classification and phylogenetics. Phylogenetic networks are a generalization of evolutionary trees that are used to represent histories for species that have undergone reticulate evolution, an important evolutionary force for many organisms (e.g. plants or viruses). In this paper, we present a novel approach to understanding the structure of networks that are not necessarily binary. More specifically, we define the concept of a closed set and show that the collection of closed sets of a network forms a hierarchy, and that this hierarchy can be deduced from either the subtrees or subnetworks on all 3-subsets. This allows us to also show that closed sets generalize the concept of the SN-sets of a binary network, sets which have proven very useful in elucidating the structure of binary networks. We also characterize the minimal closed sets (under set inclusion) for a special class of networks (2-terminal networks). Taken together, we anticipate that our results should be useful for the development of new phylogenetic network reconstruction algorithms
Reconstructing a phylogenetic level-1 network from quartets
We describe a method that will reconstruct an unrooted binary phylogenetic
level-1 network on n taxa from the set of all quartets containing a certain
fixed taxon, in O(n^3) time. We also present a more general method which can
handle more diverse quartet data, but which takes O(n^6) time. Both methods
proceed by solving a certain system of linear equations over GF(2).
For a general dense quartet set (containing at least one quartet on every
four taxa) our O(n^6) algorithm constructs a phylogenetic level-1 network
consistent with the quartet set if such a network exists and returns an (O(n^2)
sized) certificate of inconsistency otherwise. This answers a question raised
by Gambette, Berry and Paul regarding the complexity of reconstructing a
level-1 network from a dense quartet set
A Survey of Combinatorial Methods for Phylogenetic Networks
The evolutionary history of a set of species is usually described by a rooted phylogenetic tree. Although it is generally undisputed that bifurcating speciation events and descent with modifications are major forces of evolution, there is a growing belief that reticulate events also have a role to play. Phylogenetic networks provide an alternative to phylogenetic trees and may be more suitable for data sets where evolution involves significant amounts of reticulate events, such as hybridization, horizontal gene transfer, or recombination. In this article, we give an introduction to the topic of phylogenetic networks, very briefly describing the fundamental concepts and summarizing some of the most important combinatorial methods that are available for their computation
When two trees go to war
Rooted phylogenetic networks are often constructed by combining trees,
clusters, triplets or characters into a single network that in some
well-defined sense simultaneously represents them all. We review these four
models and investigate how they are related. In general, the model chosen
influences the minimum number of reticulation events required. However, when
one obtains the input data from two binary trees, we show that the minimum
number of reticulations is independent of the model. The number of
reticulations necessary to represent the trees, triplets, clusters (in the
softwired sense) and characters (with unrestricted multiple crossover
recombination) are all equal. Furthermore, we show that these results also hold
when not the number of reticulations but the level of the constructed network
is minimised. We use these unification results to settle several complexity
questions that have been open in the field for some time. We also give explicit
examples to show that already for data obtained from three binary trees the
models begin to diverge
Phylogenetic Networks Do not Need to Be Complex: Using Fewer Reticulations to Represent Conflicting Clusters
Phylogenetic trees are widely used to display estimates of how groups of
species evolved. Each phylogenetic tree can be seen as a collection of
clusters, subgroups of the species that evolved from a common ancestor. When
phylogenetic trees are obtained for several data sets (e.g. for different
genes), then their clusters are often contradicting. Consequently, the set of
all clusters of such a data set cannot be combined into a single phylogenetic
tree. Phylogenetic networks are a generalization of phylogenetic trees that can
be used to display more complex evolutionary histories, including reticulate
events such as hybridizations, recombinations and horizontal gene transfers.
Here we present the new CASS algorithm that can combine any set of clusters
into a phylogenetic network. We show that the networks constructed by CASS are
usually simpler than networks constructed by other available methods. Moreover,
we show that CASS is guaranteed to produce a network with at most two
reticulations per biconnected component, whenever such a network exists. We
have implemented CASS and integrated it in the freely available Dendroscope
software
A Practical Algorithm for Reconstructing Level-1 Phylogenetic Networks
Recently much attention has been devoted to the construction of phylogenetic
networks which generalize phylogenetic trees in order to accommodate complex
evolutionary processes. Here we present an efficient, practical algorithm for
reconstructing level-1 phylogenetic networks - a type of network slightly more
general than a phylogenetic tree - from triplets. Our algorithm has been made
publicly available as the program LEV1ATHAN. It combines ideas from several
known theoretical algorithms for phylogenetic tree and network reconstruction
with two novel subroutines. Namely, an exponential-time exact and a greedy
algorithm both of which are of independent theoretical interest. Most
importantly, LEV1ATHAN runs in polynomial time and always constructs a level-1
network. If the data is consistent with a phylogenetic tree, then the algorithm
constructs such a tree. Moreover, if the input triplet set is dense and, in
addition, is fully consistent with some level-1 network, it will find such a
network. The potential of LEV1ATHAN is explored by means of an extensive
simulation study and a biological data set. One of our conclusions is that
LEV1ATHAN is able to construct networks consistent with a high percentage of
input triplets, even when these input triplets are affected by a low to
moderate level of noise