Identifying X-Trees with Few Characters

Previous work has shown the perhaps surprising result that, for any binary phylogenetic tree T , there is a set of four characters that define T . Here we deal with the general case, where T is an arbitrary X-tree. We show that if d is the maximum degree of any vertex in T , then the minimum number of characters that identify T is log2 d (up to a small multiplicative constant).

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: COMBINATORICS
• Authors: Magnus Bordewich, Charles Semple, Mike A. Steel
• Keywords: Arbitrary X-tree, Binary Phylogenetic Tree, COMBINATORICS 2006, General Case