Parsimony, Phylogeny, and Genomics

Victor Albert is Head of the Botanical Garden and Associate Professor at The Natural History Museums and Botanical Garden, University of Oslo, Norway. Dr. Albert has published and lectured broadly in the fields of phylogenetic theory and methodology, plant systematics and evolution, plant molecular developmental biology, and evolutionary genomics.

• Preface ; 1. Parsimony and phylogenetics in the genomic age ; THE PHILOSOPHY OF PARSIMONY ANALYSIS, INCLUDING COMPARISON WITH MODEL-BASED APPROACHES ; 2. What is the rationale for 'Ockham's Razor' (a.k.a. parsimony) in phylogenetic inference? ; 3. Parsimony and its presuppositions ; PARSIMONY, CHARACTER ANALYSIS, AND OPTIMIZATION OF SEQUENCE CHARACTERS ; 4. The logic of the data matrix in phylogenetic analysis ; 5. Alignment, dynamic homology, and optimization ; 6. Parsimony and the problem of inapplicables in sequence data ; COMPUTATIONAL LIMITS OF PARSIMONY ANALYSIS: FROM HISTORICAL ASPECTS TO COMPETITION WITH FAST MODEL-BASED APPROACHES ; 7. The limits of conventional cladistic analysis ; 8. Parsimony and Bayesian phylogenetics ; MATHEMATICAL ATTRIBUTES OF PARSIMONY ; 9. Maximum parsimony and the phylogenetic information in multi-state characters ; PARSIMONY AND GENOMICS ; 10. Using phylogeny to understand genomic evolution ; 11. Dollo parsimony and reconstruction of genome evolution ; References ; Index

"Many readers might be wondering why a simple principle such as parsimony would be so useful in a technologically advanced area of study like genomics. The answer is found within the pages of this volume." The Quarterly Review of Biology, Volume 82, Rob DeSalle, American Museum of Natural History