Drawing rooted phylogenetic networks

IEEE/ACM Trans Comput Biol Bioinform. 2009 Jan-Mar;6(1):103-9. doi: 10.1109/TCBB.2008.58.

Abstract

The evolutionary history of a collection of species is usually represented by a phylogenetic tree. Sometimes, phylogenetic networks are used as a means of representing reticulate evolution or of showing uncertainty and incompatibilities in evolutionary datasets. This is often done using unrooted phylogenetic networks such as split networks, due in part, to the availability of software (SplitsTree) for their computation and visualization. In this paper we discuss the problem of drawing rooted phylogenetic networks as cladograms or phylograms in a number of different views that are commonly used for rooted trees. Implementations of the algorithms are available in new releases of the Dendroscope and SplitsTree programs.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Computer Graphics*
  • Evolution, Molecular
  • Models, Genetic
  • Phylogeny*
  • Software*