Summary
High congruence, support, stability, resolution and decisiveness are seen as positive attributes by many systematists. Within a cladistic context, the consistency index, the retention index, branch support, data decisiveness, the number of nodes resolved in a strict consensus tree and the incongruence length difference are direct measures of these qualities. Phylogenetic analyses of 29 datasets for cetartiodactyl mammals show that for a particular character partition, these indices can vary radically in separate versus combined analysis of datasets. The quality of any single dataset is of little importance in comparison to a thorough sampling of the available character space.
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© 2002 Springer Basel AG
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Gatesy, J. (2002). Relative quality of different systematic datasets for cetartiodactyl mammals: assessments within a combined analysis framework. In: DeSalle, R., Wheeler, W., Giribet, G. (eds) Molecular Systematics and Evolution: Theory and Practice. EXS 92, vol 92. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8114-2_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8114-2_4
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel
Print ISBN: 978-3-0348-9442-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-0348-8114-2
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