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Hypothesizing hybrids and parents using character intermediacy, parental distance, and equality
Author(s) -
Estabrook George F.,
Gilad Nir L.,
Reznicek Anton A.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
taxon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1996-8175
pISSN - 0040-0262
DOI - 10.2307/1224249
Subject(s) - hybrid , character (mathematics) , taxon , phylogenetic tree , biology , statistics , genetic data , certainty , genetic distance , evolutionary biology , zoology , mathematics , genetics , demography , ecology , genetic variation , gene , sociology , botany , geometry , population
Summary Estabrook, G. F., Gil‐ad, N. L. & Reznicek, A. A.: Hypothesizing hybrids and parents using character intermediacy, parental distance, and equality. – Taxon 45: 647‐682. 1996. – ISSN 0040‐0262. A simple method for objectively screening morphological variation in study sets suspected of containing hybrids is presented. The method applies to a collection of specimens in which two or more species along with some or all of their hybrids are suspected to be represented. The purpose of the method is to hypothesize which specimens might be of hybrid origin, and for each of these specimens to indicate which other two specimens resemble those that might have been its parents. The method is employed in the computer program HYWIN by using two kinds of computationally intense techniques: evaluation of a hybrid optimality score for each triplet generated from three quantitatively defined criteria: hybrid intermediacy (IN), parental distance (PD), and equality (EQ); and simulation of a probability hypothesis to generate measures of the level of statistical certainty. The method can be applied in direct studies of hybrids and their parents, taxonomic treatments, pinpointing of specimens that merit study with other techniques, and screening of data sets for putative hybrids and hybrid species prior to phylogenetic reconstruction.