Consistency of Bayesian inference of resolved phylogenetic trees.

Bayesian inference is now a leading technique for reconstructing phylogenetic trees from aligned sequence data. In this short note, we formally show that the maximum posterior tree topology provides a statistically consistent estimate of a fully resolved evolutionary tree under a wide variety of conditions. This includes the inference of gene trees from aligned sequence data across the entire parameter range of branch lengths, and under general conditions on priors in models where the usual 'identifiability' conditions hold. We extend this to the inference of species trees from sequence data, where the gene trees constitute 'nuisance parameters', as in the program (*)BEAST. This note also addresses earlier concerns raised in the literature questioning the extent to which statistical consistency for Bayesian methods might hold in general.

• Publication year

  2010

• Venue

  Journal of Theoretical Biology

• Publication date

  2010-01-17

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Mathematics, Computer Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.jtbi.2013.08.012arXiv 1001.2864PMID 23973478
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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