title: A new balance index for phylogenetic trees.
abstract: Several indices that measure the degree of balance of a rooted phylogenetic tree have been proposed so far in the literature. In this work we define and study a new index of this kind, which we call the total cophenetic index: the sum, over all pairs of different leaves, of the depth of their lowest common ancestor. This index makes sense for arbitrary trees, can be computed in linear time and it has a larger range of values and a greater resolution power than other indices like Colless' or Sackin's. We compute its maximum and minimum values for arbitrary and binary trees, as well as exact formulas for its expected value for binary trees under the Yule and the uniform models of evolution. As a byproduct of this study, we obtain an exact formula for the expected value of the Sackin index under the uniform model, a result that seems to be new in the literature.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Health Science (IUNICS) and Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of the Balearic Islands, E-07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain. arnau.mir@uib.es
authors.forename: Arnau
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mir
authors.forename: Francesc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rosselló
authors.forename: Lucı A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Rotger
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny