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Comparing the shapes of trees

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Combinatorial Mathematics III

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Mathematics ((LNM,volume 452))

Abstract

A taxonomist may use rooted trees to depict hierarchical classifications of species belonging to the same family. We look at various properties which might be required of a "coefficient of similarity" to be used to compare the shapes of two such trees. A similarity measure calculated from the number of shared subtrees is found to satisfy these requirements.

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References

  1. R. M. Cormack, A review of classification, J.R. Statist. Soc. A 134 (1971), 321–367.

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  2. James S. Farris, On comparing the shapes of taxonomic trees, Syst. Zool. 22 (1973), 50–54.

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  3. Stephen C. Johnson, Hierarchical clustering schemes, Psychometrika 32 (1967), 241–254.

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  4. J. B. Phipps, Dendogram topology, Syst. Zool. 20 (1971), 306–308.

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  5. W. T. Williams and H. T. Clifford, On the comparison of two classifications of the same set of elements, Taxon 20 (1971), 519–522.

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Anne Penfold Street Walter Denis Wallis

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© 1975 Springer-Verlag

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Dobson, A.J. (1975). Comparing the shapes of trees. In: Street, A.P., Wallis, W.D. (eds) Combinatorial Mathematics III. Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol 452. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0069548

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0069548

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-07154-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-37482-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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