Parsimony accelerated Maximum Likelihood searches

: Phylogenetic search is a key tool used in a variety of biological research endeavors. However, this search problem is known to be computationally difficult, due to the astronomically large search space, making the use of heuristic methods necessary. The performance of heuristic methods for finding maximum likelihood trees can be improved by using parsimony as an initial estimator for maximum likelihood. The time spent in performing the parsimony search to boost performance is insignificant compared to the time spent in the maximum likelihood search, leading to an overall gain in search time. These parsimony boosted maximum likelihood searches lead to topologies with scores statistically similar to the unboosted searches, but in less time.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: IJCBDD
• Authors: Kenneth Sundberg, Timothy O'Connor, Hyrum Carroll, Mark J. Clement, Quinn Snell
• Keywords: Heuristic Methods, IJCBDD 2008, Maximum Likelihood, Maximum Likelihood Trees