ISSN:
1615-6110
Keywords:
Angiosperms
;
Chenopodiaceae
;
Chenopodium
;
Taxonomic trees
;
phenograms
;
cladograms
;
natural classifications
;
predictivity
;
information content
;
probability of trees
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Biology
Notes:
Abstract The contribution ofJ. S. L. Gilmour to numerical taxonomy is reviewed. His important concept of natural classification, as being general-purpose classifications with high predictivity, led to the development of ideas of information content, unit characters and equal character-weighting. The concept of predicitivity is extended to taxonomic trees (phenograms or cladograms). Under certain assumption of random sampling of characters it is shown that the probability of recovering the correct tree topology or tree-form may be small if characters are few. There may be very many topologies or tree-forms, every one of which has individually a low probability. It is, however, possible to estimate the aggregate probability of trees which have more than some specified resemblance to the “correct” tree. The practical prospects of estimating the distribution of tree probabilities are discussed.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00936546
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