Much ado about nothing: inapplicable data as insertion-deletion events.
Cladistics
; 39(5): 475-478, 2023 10.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37466458
ABSTRACT
The treatment of inapplicable characters has proved especially vexing to systematists. Investigators have wrestled with alternative coding scenarios to capture both the presence and absence of a feature, and its variation when present, in a reasonable manner. Three basic issues have presented themselves (i) impossible states at internal nodes; (ii) action at a distance among disparate parts of the tree; and (iii) "secondary" (i.e. aspect variation) characters overwhelming "primary" (i.e. character presence/absence) patterns in grouping taxa. Multiple methods have been proposed to deal with these issues in the context of standard character coding with varying levels of complexity. Here, I show that these issues can be dealt with in a direct fashion by treating presence/absence not as a character, but as insertion/deletion of a character with all its potential variation. This approach removes these three problems in simple, straightforward manner.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Phylogeny
/
INDEL Mutation
Language:
En
Journal:
Cladistics
Year:
2023
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States