Arboreal networks and their underlying trees

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Huber, Katharina T., Overman, Darren
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Huber, Katharina T.
Overman, Darren
author_facet Huber, Katharina T.
Overman, Darren
contents Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is an important process in bacterial evolution. Current phylogeny-based approaches to capture it cannot however appropriately account for the fact that HGT can occur between bacteria living in different ecological niches. Due to the fact that arboreal networks are a type of multiple-rooted phylogenetic network that can be thought of as a forest of rooted phylogenetic trees along with a set of additional arcs each joining two different trees in the forest, understanding the combinatorial structure of such networks might therefore pave the way to extending current phylogeny-based HGT-inference methods in this direction. A central question in this context is, how can we construct an arboreal network? Answering this question is strongly informed by finding ways to \textit{encode} an arboreal network, that is, breaking up the network into simpler combinatorial structures that, in a well defined sense uniquely determine the network. In the form of triplets, trinets and quarnets such encodings are known for certain types of single-rooted phylogenetic networks. By studying the underlying tree of an arboreal network, we compliment them here with an answer for arboreal networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_22419
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Arboreal networks and their underlying trees
Huber, Katharina T.
Overman, Darren
Populations and Evolution
05C05, 92D15
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is an important process in bacterial evolution. Current phylogeny-based approaches to capture it cannot however appropriately account for the fact that HGT can occur between bacteria living in different ecological niches. Due to the fact that arboreal networks are a type of multiple-rooted phylogenetic network that can be thought of as a forest of rooted phylogenetic trees along with a set of additional arcs each joining two different trees in the forest, understanding the combinatorial structure of such networks might therefore pave the way to extending current phylogeny-based HGT-inference methods in this direction. A central question in this context is, how can we construct an arboreal network? Answering this question is strongly informed by finding ways to \textit{encode} an arboreal network, that is, breaking up the network into simpler combinatorial structures that, in a well defined sense uniquely determine the network. In the form of triplets, trinets and quarnets such encodings are known for certain types of single-rooted phylogenetic networks. By studying the underlying tree of an arboreal network, we compliment them here with an answer for arboreal networks.
title Arboreal networks and their underlying trees
topic Populations and Evolution
05C05, 92D15
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22419