Using information theory to detect rogue taxa and improve consensus trees

Smith, Martin R.

doi:10.1093/sysbio/syab099

Using information theory to detect rogue taxa and improve consensus trees

Smith, Martin R.

Authors

Dr Martin Smith martin.smith@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Abstract

“Rogue” taxa of uncertain affinity can confound attempts to summarize the results of phylogenetic analyses. Rogues reduce resolution and support values in consensus trees, potentially obscuring strong evidence for relationships between other taxa. Information theory provides a principled means of assessing the congruence between a set of trees and their consensus, allowing rogue taxa to be identified more effectively than when using ad hoc measures of tree quality. A basic implementation of this approach in R recovers reduced consensus trees that are better resolved, more accurate, and more informative than those generated by existing methods. [Consensus trees; information theory; phylogenetic software; Rogue taxa.]

Citation

Smith, M. R. (2022). Using information theory to detect rogue taxa and improve consensus trees. Systematic Biology, 71(5), 1088-1094. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syab099

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Dec 17, 2021
Online Publication Date	Dec 24, 2021
Publication Date	2022-09
Deposit Date	Jan 11, 2022
Publicly Available Date	Jun 14, 2022
Journal	Systematic Biology
Print ISSN	1063-5157
Electronic ISSN	1076-836X
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	71
Issue	5
Pages	1088-1094
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syab099

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Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Systematic Biologists.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.