“TreeSearch” (Smith 2021) is an R package that contains a “shiny” user interface for interactive tree search and exploration of results, including character visualization, rogue taxon detection (Smith 2022a), tree space mapping (Smith 2022b), and cluster consensus trees.

Inapplicable character states are handled using the algorithm of Brazeau, Guillerme and Smith (2019) using the “Morphy” C library (Brazeau et al. 2017). Implied weighting (Goloboff, 1993), Profile Parsimony (Faith and Trueman, 2001) and Successive Approximations (Farris, 1969) are implemented; custom optimality criteria and search approaches can also be defined.

# Installation

Full installation instructions, including notes on installing R, are available in a vignette.

Install and load the stable version from CRAN as follows:

install.packages("TreeSearch")
library("TreeSearch")

Install and load the development version of “TreeSearch” with:

if(!require("curl")) install.packages("curl")
if(!require("remotes")) install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("ms609/TreeSearch")
library("TreeSearch")

# Quick start

Launch a graphical user interface by typing TreeSearch::EasyTrees() in the R console.

For more control over search settings, see ?MaximizeParsimony().

# Documentation

Please note that the ‘TreeSearch’ project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.

# References

Brazeau M. D., Smith M. R., Guillerme T. (2017). MorphyLib: a library for phylogenetic analysis of categorical trait data with inapplicability. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.815372.

Brazeau, M. D., Guillerme, T. and Smith, M. R. (2019). An algorithm for morphological phylogenetic analysis with inapplicable data. Systematic Biology, 68(4), 619-631. doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syy083.

Faith D. P., Trueman J. W. H. (2001). Towards an inclusive philosophy for phylogenetic inference. Systematic Biology, 50(3), 331–350. doi: 10.1080/10635150118627.

Farris, J. S. (1969). A successive approximations approach to character weighting. Systematic Biology, 18(4), 374–385. doi: 10.2307/2412182.

Goloboff, P. A. (1993). Estimating character weights during tree search. Cladistics, 9(1), 83–91. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-0031.1993.tb00209.x.

Goloboff, P. A., Torres, A., Arias, J. S. (2018). Weighted parsimony outperforms other methods of phylogenetic inference under models appropriate for morphology. Cladistics, 34(4), 407–437. doi: 10.1111/cla.12205.

Smith, M. R. (2021). TreeSearch: morphological phylogenetic analysis in R. BioRχiv. doi: 10.1101/2021.11.08.467735.

Smith, M. R. (2022a). Using information theory to detect rogue taxa and improve phylogenetic trees. Systematic Biology, 71(5), 1088–1094. doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syab099

Smith, M. R. (2022b). Robust analysis of phylogenetic tree space. Systematic Biology, 71(5), 1255–1270. doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syab100