2014/05/12 by Andrew R. Francis, Andrew Francis, Francis, Andrew R. +2
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #FOS: Biological sciences #Genetic diversity and population structure #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE) #q-bio.PE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1405.2965
19 pages, 9 figures. Revised version includes clarification in proof of Theorem 2, and a new figure (Fig 9)
openalex publication_date 2014/05/12 · arxiv created 2014/09/23 · arxiv updated 2014/09/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Hybrid evolution and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) are processes where evolutionary relationships may more accurately be described by a reticulated network than by a tree. In such a network, there will often be several paths between any two extant species, reflecting the possible pathways that genetic material may have been passed down from a common ancestor to these species. These paths will typically have different lengths but an `average distance' can still be calculated between any two taxa. In this article, we ask whether this average distance is able to distinguish reticulate evolution from pure tree-like evolution. We consider two types of reticulation networks: hybridization networks and HGT networks. For the former, we establish a general result which shows that average distances between extant taxa can appear tree-like, but only under a single hybridization event near the root; in all other cases, the two forms of evolution can be distinguished by average distances. For HGT networks, we demonstrate some analogous but more intricate results.