A fast algorithmic technique for comparing large phylogenetic trees

Abstract

The comparison of rooted phylogenetic trees is essential to querying phylogenetic databases such as TreeBASE. Current comparison methods are based on either tree edit distances or common subtrees. However, a limitation of such methods is their inherent complexity. In this paper, a new distance over fully resolved phylogenetic trees, the transposition distance, is described which is based on a well-known bijection between perfect matchings and phylogenetic trees, and simple linear-time algorithms are presented for computing the new distance. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.