MBE Advance Access originally published online on November 21, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(2):532-538; doi:10.1093/molbev/msl180
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Research Articles |
QNet: An Agglomerative Method for the Construction of Phylogenetic Networks from Weighted Quartets



* Chinese Academy of Science-Max Planck Society Partner Institute for Computational Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
Stockholm Bioinformatics Center, Albanova, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
School of Computing Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom
E-mail: stefan{at}picb.ac.cn.
Accepted for publication November 15, 2006.
We present QNet, a method for constructing split networks from weighted quartet trees. QNet can be viewed as a quartet analogue of the distance-based Neighbor-Net (NNet) method for network construction. Just as NNet, QNet works by agglomeratively computing a collection of circular weighted splits of the taxa set which is subsequently represented by a planar split network. To illustrate the applicability of QNet, we apply it to a previously published Salmonella data set. We conclude that QNet can provide a useful alternative to NNet if distance data are not available or a character-based approach is preferred. Moreover, it can be used as an aid for determining when a quartet-based tree-building method may or may not be appropriate for a given data set. QNet is freely available for download.
Key Words: phylogenetic tree phylogenetic network split network Neighbor-Net SplitsTree quartet