Abstract.
Comparative studies of tree-building methods have shown minimum evolution to be in general an accurate criterion for selecting a true tree. To improve the use of this criterion, this paper proposes a method for rapidly and directly calculating a length of a dichotomous tree without having to resort to branch length calculations. This direct calculation (DC) method applies to the complete final topology, giving equal importance to each branch after a dichotomy. According to this method, the tree length S DC is S DC =∑ i ∑ j (D ij /2Bij) = (∑ i<j ∑D ij 2Bmax−Bij)/2Bmax −1 where D ij is the observed distance between taxa i and j, B ij is the number of branches connecting i and j, Bmax is the greatest B ij in the tree, and the powers of two are due to the dichotomy of the tree. This tree length expression may be used as a rapid method for selecting the shortest tree from a set of hypothetical or subobtimal trees.
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Received: 2 March 2000 / Accepted: 24 March 2000
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Pauplin, Y. Direct Calculation of a Tree Length Using a Distance Matrix. J Mol Evol 51, 41–47 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/s002390010065
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s002390010065