Central limit theorems for Fréchet means in the space of phylogenetic trees

Abstract

This paper studies the characterisation and limiting distributions of Fréchet means in the space of phylogenetic trees. This space is topologically stratified, as well as being a CAT(0) space. We use a generalised version of the Delta method to demonstrate non-classical behaviour arising from the global topological structure of the space. In particular, we show that, for the space T4 of trees with four leaves, although they are related to the Gaussian distribution, the forms taken by the limiting distributions depend on the co-dimensions of the strata in which the Fréchet means lie.