Computing phylogenetic invariants for time-reversible models: from TN93 to its submodels

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Casanellas, Marta, Garbett, Jennifer, Homs, Roser, Korchmaros, Annachiara, Paul, Niharika Chakrabarty
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916760312086528
author Casanellas, Marta
Garbett, Jennifer
Homs, Roser
Korchmaros, Annachiara
Paul, Niharika Chakrabarty
author_facet Casanellas, Marta
Garbett, Jennifer
Homs, Roser
Korchmaros, Annachiara
Paul, Niharika Chakrabarty
contents Phylogenetic invariants are equations that vanish on algebraic varieties associated with Markov processes that model molecular substitutions on phylogenetic trees. For practical applications, it is essential to understand these equations across a wide range of substitution models. Recent work has shown that, for equivariant models, phylogenetic invariants can be derived from those of the general Markov model by restricting to the linear space defined by the model (namely, the space of mixtures of distributions on the model). Following this philosophy, we describe the space of mixtures and phylogenetic invariants for time-reversible models that are not equivariant. Specifically, we study two submodels of the Tamura-Nei nucleotide substitution model (Felsenstein 81 and 84) using an orthogonal change of basis recently introduced for algebraic time-reversible models. For tripods, we prove that the algebraic variety of each submodel coincides with the variety of Tamura-Nei intersected with the linear space of the submodel. In the case of quartets, we show that it is an irreducible component of this intersection. Moreover, we demonstrate that it suffices to consider only the binomial equations defining the linear space, which correspond to the natural symmetries of the model in the new coordinates. For each submodel, we explicitly provide equations defining a local complete intersection that characterizes the phylogenetic variety on a dense open subset containing the biologically relevant points.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_20526
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Computing phylogenetic invariants for time-reversible models: from TN93 to its submodels
Casanellas, Marta
Garbett, Jennifer
Homs, Roser
Korchmaros, Annachiara
Paul, Niharika Chakrabarty
Populations and Evolution
Algebraic Geometry
92D15, 14M99, 62R01
Phylogenetic invariants are equations that vanish on algebraic varieties associated with Markov processes that model molecular substitutions on phylogenetic trees. For practical applications, it is essential to understand these equations across a wide range of substitution models. Recent work has shown that, for equivariant models, phylogenetic invariants can be derived from those of the general Markov model by restricting to the linear space defined by the model (namely, the space of mixtures of distributions on the model). Following this philosophy, we describe the space of mixtures and phylogenetic invariants for time-reversible models that are not equivariant. Specifically, we study two submodels of the Tamura-Nei nucleotide substitution model (Felsenstein 81 and 84) using an orthogonal change of basis recently introduced for algebraic time-reversible models. For tripods, we prove that the algebraic variety of each submodel coincides with the variety of Tamura-Nei intersected with the linear space of the submodel. In the case of quartets, we show that it is an irreducible component of this intersection. Moreover, we demonstrate that it suffices to consider only the binomial equations defining the linear space, which correspond to the natural symmetries of the model in the new coordinates. For each submodel, we explicitly provide equations defining a local complete intersection that characterizes the phylogenetic variety on a dense open subset containing the biologically relevant points.
title Computing phylogenetic invariants for time-reversible models: from TN93 to its submodels
topic Populations and Evolution
Algebraic Geometry
92D15, 14M99, 62R01
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.20526