In article <3okk7g$ab7 at mserv1.dl.ac.uk>,
Essop, FM, Dr <MFESSOP at chempath.uct.ac.za> wrote:
>I have done some restriction mapping and constructed cladograms using
>Hennig86. I am not sure what the following values indicate:
>i) consistency index - what for eg. does a ci value of 54 compared to
>45 mean ?
>ii) retention index - same question as above
>iii) tree length - what for eg. does a tree length of 307 compared to
>288 mean ? How does one "decide" what the best tree is - based on
>tree length ?
Mark Siddall characterized these as naive questions. But I interpret them
as very substantive. Sure a ci of 54 is better than 45, sure you can see
which value of a retention index is better than which, sure a shorter tree
is better than a long one.
But ... how much better? Where is the cutoff? If that is Essop's
questions then they are not naive at all, and I would like to know the
answers.
-----
Joe Felsenstein joe at genetics.washington.edu (IP No. 128.95.12.41)
Dept. of Genetics, Univ. of Washington, Box 357360, Seattle, WA 98195-7360
