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Updated: Jul 21, 2025

A Practical Guide to Phylogenetics for Nonexperts
Published on: February 5, 2014
Testing phylogenetic signal with categorical traits and tree uncertainty
Diogo Ribeiro1,2, Rui Borges3, Ana Paula Rocha4,5
1CIIMAR/CIMAR, Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto, Terminal de Cruzeiros do Porto de Leixões, 4450-208 Porto, Portugal.
Summary:
The phylogenetic signal, frequently used to identify signatures of adaptive evolution or important associations between genes and phenotypes, measures the tendency for recently diverged species to resemble each other more than distantly related species. An example of such a measure is the δ statistic, which uses Shannon entropy to measure the degree of phylogenetic signal between a categorical trait and a phylogeny. In this study, we refined this statistic to account for tree uncertainty, resulting in more accurate assessments of phylogenetic associations. In addition, we provided a more accessible and computationally efficient implementation of the δ statistic that will facilitate its use by the evolutionary community.
Availability And Implementation:
github.com/diogo-s-ribeiro/delta-statistic.
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