Consistency of Topological Moves Based on the Balanced Minimum Evolution Principle of Phylogenetic Inference

Authors:
Magnus Bordewich;Olivier Gascuel;Katharina T. Huber;Vincent Moulton
Affiliations:
University of Durham, Durham;CNRS-Université Montpellier II, Montpellier;University of East Anglia , Norwich;University of East Anglia, Norwich
Venue:
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (TCBB)
Year:
2009

Citing 3
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Abstract

Many phylogenetic algorithms search the space of possible trees using topological rearrangements and some optimality criterion. FastME is such an approach that uses the {\em balanced minimum evolution (BME)} principle, which computer studies have demonstrated to have high accuracy. FastME includes two variants: {\em balanced subtree prune and regraft (BSPR)} and {\em balanced nearest neighbor interchange (BNNI)}. These algorithms take as input a distance matrix and a putative phylogenetic tree. The tree is modified using SPR or NNI operations, respectively, to reduce the BME length relative to the distance matrix, until a tree with (locally) shortest BME length is found. Following computer simulations, it has been conjectured that BSPR and BNNI are consistent, i.e. for an input distance that is a tree-metric, they converge to the corresponding tree. We prove that the BSPR algorithm is consistent. Moreover, even if the input contains small errors relative to a tree-metric, we show that the BSPR algorithm still returns the corresponding tree. Whether BNNI is consistent remains open.