Rogue taxa phenomenon: a biological companion to simulation analysis

To provide a baseline biological comparison to simulation study predictions about the frequency of rogue taxa effects, we evaluated the frequency of a rogue taxa effect using viral data sets which differed in diversity. Using a quartet-tree framework, we measured the frequency of a rogue taxa effect in three data sets of increasing genetic variability (within viral serotype, between viral serotype, and between viral family) to test whether the rogue taxa was correlated with the mean sequence diversity of the respective data sets. We found a slight increase in the percentage of rogues as nucleotide diversity increased. Even though the number of rogues increased with diversity, the distribution of the types of rogues (friendly, crazy, or evil) did not depend on the diversity and in the case of the order-level data set the net rogue effect was slightly positive. This study, assessing frequency of the rogue taxa effect using biological data, indicated that simulation studies may over-predict the prevalence of the rogue taxa effect. Further investigations are necessary to understand which types of data sets are susceptible to a negative rogue effect and thus merit the removal of taxa from large phylogenetic reconstructions.