resolveNode {phytools}

Compute all possible resolutions of a node or all nodes in a multifurcating tree

Description

Resolves a single multifurcation or all multifurcations in all possible ways.

Usage

resolveNode(tree,node)
resolveAllNodes(tree)

Arguments

tree

an object of class "phylo".

node

for resolveNode, the node with a polytomy to resolve.

Details

This functions resolves a single multifurcation or all multifurcations in a tree in all possible ways. If the input tree has edge lengths, then the resolutions will use internal edges of zero length.

For resolveNode applied to a multifurcation with n descendants, the number of resolved trees will be equal to the number of possible rooted trees of n taxa. (For instance, three for a trifurcation, 15 for a quadrifurcation, and so on.)

For resolveAllNodes the number of fully resolved trees will be equal to the product of numbers for resolveNode applied to each multifurcation separately. (For instance, 45 for a tree containing one trifurcation and one quadrifurcation.)

Value

An object of class "multiPhylo" - or, if the input tree is already fully resolved, an object of class "phylo" identical to tree.

Author(s)

Liam Revell [e-mail]

References

Revell, L. J. (2024) phytools 2.0: an updated R ecosystem for phylogenetic comparative methods (and other things). PeerJ, 12, e16505.

See Also

multi2di