The optimization principle in phylogenetic analysis tends to give incorrect topologies when the number of nucleotides or amino acids used is small

Masatoshi Nei, Sudhir Kumar, Kei Takahashi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

138 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the maximum parsimony (MP) and minimum evolution (ME) methods of phylogenetic inference, evolutionary trees are constructed by searching for the topology that shows the minimum number of mutational changes required (M) and the smallest sum of branch lengths (S), respectively, whereas in the maximum likelihood (ML) method the topology showing the highest maximum likelihood (A) of observing a given data set is chosen. However, the theoretical basis of the optimization principle remains unclear. We therefore examined the relationships of M, S, and A for the MP, ME, and ML trees with those for the true tree by using computer simulation. The results show that M and S are generally greater for the true tree than for the MP and ME trees when the number of nucleotides examined (n) is relatively small, whereas A is generally lower for the true tree than for the ML tree. This finding indicates that the optimization principle tends to give incorrect topologies when n is small. To deal with this disturbing property of the optimization principle, we suggest that more attention should be given to testing the statistical reliability of an estimated tree rather than to finding the optimal tree with excessive efforts. When a reliability test is conducted, simplified MP, ME, and ML algorithms such as the neighbor-joining method generally give conclusions about phylogenetic inference very similar to those obtained by the more extensive tree search algorithms.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)12390-12397
Number of pages8
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume95
Issue number21
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 13 1998
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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