Minimum evolution and goodness-of-fit.
Two criteria are much used to evaluate phylogenetic trees constructed from distance data: goodness-of-fit and tree length. The exhaustive study of trees connecting four taxa shows that in some instances there is a discrepancy between these two criteria. The largest tree may be the one that best fits the distances at the cost of a negative interior branch length, whereas the shortest tree always has the largest interior branch length and is the most supported by nucleotid configurations.
Pauplin
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Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, CNRS UA 327, USTL, Montpellier, France.
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002965:Classification; D008954:Models, Biological; D010802:Phylogeny; D013223:Statistics as Topic