Measuring topological congruence by extending character techniques

Abstract

A measure of topological congruence which is an extension of the Mickevich-Farris character incongruence metric (i.e., ILD; Mickevich and Farris, 1981) is proposed. Group inclusion characters (1 = member of a clade; 0 = not a member) are constructed for each topology to be considered. The sets of characters derived from the topologies are then compared for character incongruence due to data set combination. Each homoplasy signifies a disagreement among topological statements. The value is normalized for potential maximum incongruence to adjust values for unresolved topologies. This measure is compared to other topological and character congruence techniques and explored in test data. © 1999 The Willi Hennig Society.