Parsimony, Phylogeny, and Genomics

About this book

Parsimony analysis (cladistics) has long been one of the most widely used methods of phylogenetic inference in the fields of systematic and evolutionary biology. Moreover it has mathematical attributes that lend itself for use with complex, genomic - scale data sets. This book aims to demonstrate the potential that this powerful hierarchial data summarisation method also has for both structural and functional comparative genomic research.

Contents

Preface; 1. Parsimony and phylogenetics in the genomic age; THE PHILOSOPHY OF PARSIMONY ANALYSIS, INCLUDING COMPARISON WITH MODEL-BASED APPROACHES; 2. What is the rationale for 'Ockham's Razor' (a.k.a. parsimony) in phylogenetic inference?; 3. Parsimony and its presuppositions; PARSIMONY, CHARACTER ANALYSIS, AND OPTIMIZATION OF SEQUENCE CHARACTERS; 4. The logic of the data matrix in phylogenetic analysis; 5. Alignment, dynamic homology, and optimization; 6. Parsimony and the problem of inapplicables in sequence data; COMPUTATIONAL LIMITS OF PARSIMONY ANALYSIS: FROM HISTORICAL ASPECTS TO COMPETITION WITH FAST MODEL-BASED APPROACHES; 7. The limits of conventional cladistic analysis; 8. Parsimony and Bayesian phylogenetics; MATHEMATICAL ATTRIBUTES OF PARSIMONY; 9. Maximum parsimony and the phylogenetic information in multi-state characters; PARSIMONY AND GENOMICS; 10. Using phylogeny to understand genomic evolution; 11. Dollo parsimony and reconstruction of genome evolution; References; Index

Customer Reviews