BOOTSTRAP CONFIDENCE LEVELS FOR PHYLOGENETIC TREES

Citation
B. Efron et al., BOOTSTRAP CONFIDENCE LEVELS FOR PHYLOGENETIC TREES, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 93(14), 1996, pp. 7085-7090
Citations number
14
Categorie Soggetti
Multidisciplinary Sciences
ISSN journal
00278424
Volume
93
Issue
14
Year of publication
1996
Pages
7085 - 7090
Database
ISI
SICI code
0027-8424(1996)93:14<7085:BCLFPT>2.0.ZU;2-#
Abstract
Evolutionary trees are often estimated from DNA or RNA sequence data, How much confidence should we have in the estimated trees? In 1985, Fe lsenstein [Felsenstein, J. (1985) Evolution 39, 783-791] suggested the use of the bootstrap to answer this question. Felsenstein's method, w hich in concept is a straightforward application of the bootstrap, is widely used, but has been criticized as biased in the genetics literat ure. This paper concerns the use of the bootstrap in the tree problem. We shown that Felsenstein's method is not biased, but that it can be corrected to better agree with standard ideas of confidence levels and hypothesis testing. These corrections can be made by using the more e laborate bootstrap method presented here, at the expense of considerab ly more computation.