Do we still need supertrees?

Abstract

The up-dated species level phylogeny for the carnivores using a supertree approach provides new insights into the evolutionary origin and relationships of carnivores. While the gain in biological knowledge is substantial, the supertree approach is not undisputed. I discuss the principles of supertree methods and the competitor supermatrix approaches. I argue that both methods are important to infer phylogenetic relationships.See research article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/10/12. © 2012 von Haeseler; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.