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Vicariance Events, not Areas, Should be Used in Biogeographical Analysis
Author(s) -
Hovenkamp P.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
cladistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.323
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1096-0031
pISSN - 0748-3007
DOI - 10.1111/j.1096-0031.1997.tb00241.x
Subject(s) - phylogenetic tree , tree (set theory) , vicariance , computer science , character (mathematics) , yield (engineering) , theoretical computer science , algorithm , scratch , mathematics , biology , combinatorics , clade , physics , programming language , geometry , biochemistry , thermodynamics , gene
Phylogenetic computer programs work by examining sequences of tree topologies, searching for those trees which yield minimal length. Rather than optimizing each tree from scratch, programs can use computational shortcuts to reduce the work required to compute each new tree's length; however, at least some of the techniques currently in use are approximate, and can miscalculate tree lengths. I describe a new incremental character optimization algorithm which is exact, correct, and comparable in speed to current methods.