Adequacy of numerical taxonomic methods: Further experiments using simulated data

Abstract

The adequacy of various phenetic and phylogenetic estimation methods was evaluated using simulated data sets. Two parsimony programs were used to construct maximum parsimony trees (WAGNER 78 and HENNIG 86). The CAFCA program was used to perform group‐compatibility analysis. Four UPGMA clustering strategies were employed. The simulation model GENESIS was used to generate data sets under different evolutionary conditions. The effects of input parameters and tree properties on the accuracy of the estimated trees were evaluated. UPGMA based on product moment correlations of unstandardized characters appeared to perform best, under all evolutionary conditions tested. The effect of input parameters on the accuracy was not very significant. Among the tree statistics the stemminess of the true tree appeared to be the most important estimator of accuracy.