Chapter 16, Problem 9PDT

Summary Introduction

To estimate: The phylogeny of the given taxa by plotting the changes on each of the possible unrooted trees and to determine the tree with fewest evolutionary changes.

Introduction: Three species named 1, 2, and 3 are endemic to a group of islands. They all share a common ancestor named species 4. Species 4 serves as an out group. It has a huge population size which indicates that since islands colonized, no mutation has become fixed in its population. The genes were sequenced and ten nucleotide sites were located that differ among these four species. The nucleotide bases at these sites are as follows:

$\begin{array}{l}\text{Species 1: GCTGATGAGT}\hfill \\ \text{Species 2: ATCAATGAGT}\hfill \\ \text{Species 3: GTTGCAACGT}\hfill \\ \text{Species 4: GTCAATGACA}\hfill \end{array}$