Phylogenetics (Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and Its Applications) [Hardcover]

Charles Semple (Author), Mike Steel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198509421 | ISBN-13: 978-0198509424 | Publication Date: March 27, 2003

'Phylogenetics' is the reconstruction and analysis of phylogenetic (evolutionary) trees and networks based on inherited characteristics. It is a flourishing area of interaction between mathematics, statistics, computer science and biology.

The main role of phylogenetic techniques lies in evolutionary biology, where it is used to infer historical relationships between species. However, the methods are also relevant to a diverse range of fields including epidemiology, ecology, medicine, as well as linguistics and cognitive psychology
This book is intended for biologists interested in the mathematical theory behind phylogenetic methods, and for mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists eager to learn about this emerging area of discrete mathematics.


'Phylogenetics' in the 24th volume in the Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and its Applications. This series contains short books suitable for graduate students and researchers who want a well-written account of mathematics that is fundamental to current to research. The series emphasises future directions of research and focuses on genuine applications of mathematics to finance, engineering and the physical and biological sciences.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The authors' versatility in words, as well as in mathematics, makes reading this book altogether an enjoyable experience for the mathematically-inclined. Systematic Biology The authors state in the preface that their intention is to provide "a reasonably self-contained overview of an expanding field". In our opinion, they certainly succeed in meeting that goal. Systematic Biology All in all, this book should serve as an excellent mathematical introduction to phylogenetics for beginners and as a good reference for experts in the field. Systematic Biology Concisely and clearly written, Phylogenetics is a must-read for mathematicians or computer scientists who wish to do research in molecular phylogenetics, computational biology and bioinformatics. I hope the book will attract powerful mathematicians into this exciting area of research. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution ... this book provides a concise and lucid summary of the mathematics literature related to phylogenetics. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution

About the Author

Charles Semple and Mike Steele are both in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury; Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, New Zealand.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198509421
• ISBN-13: 978-0198509424
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #385,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, for the dedicated reader, February 18, 2004

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wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Phylogenetics (Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and Its Applications) (Hardcover)

Starting with genes, proteins, or other biological traits, phylogenetics is about describing relationships between them. Phylogenetics tries to estimate "family trees" given only the family members visible today - exact lineage is guesswork, since the parents, grandparents, and shared heritage can never be known.

This book offers deep analysis of one family of techniques for deducing possible trees. It gives a very thorough, formal description of ways to examine and resolve different sources of information, or to determine that they can not be resolved. It offers minute analysis of ways to take subsets of the whole family, analyze the subsets, then merge the subset conclusions together, as much as possible. It also addresses the statistical character of the tree-building problem. The reader who masters this material has a powerful set of tools for phylogenetic analysis.

That reader must be truly dedicated, though. The first two chapters read like mathematical graph theory (because they are). The next few chapters are also highly mathematical, but offer a bit more biological insight. I'm not a mathematician, so I find this book tough going. The graph-theoretic conclusions give wonderful insight into combining information from multiple traits and in noting points of conflict. It takes me a while, though, to unwind the formal notation enough to attach biological meaning to it. There are a few helpful statistical analyses, but they could be missed - the more familiar kinds of statistics are hidden among the combinatorics and tree perturbations. Later chapters revisit familiar topics like parsimony and Markov models, but with theoretical depth that's hard to find elsewhere.

Within the whole gamut of phylogenetic techniques now used, this book addresses only one range. Within that range, however, Semple and Steel have done a fine job of showing the theory behind those techniques. I value the insights that this book brings. Even so, it's not always easy to dislodge those insights from the solid slabs of proofs in which they are embedded. I appreciate the demonstration of NP-completeness of specific problems, but I can't always apply that knowledge to the biology I want to address.

Anyone devoted to mastering every nuance of phylogenetic analysis should read this book. It goes beyond the needs of most application developers, though. It probably won't say much at all to those who just use the results of analysis; it simply does not address any particular application that an analyst might use. If you have the determination to understand and the patience to pick out the understanding, you'll find a lot to like in "Phylogenetics".

4.0 out of 5 stars For Math and Computer Scientists, December 11, 2011

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MyAdvice (PA, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Phylogenetics (Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and Its Applications) (Hardcover)

I agree with a lot of what the review by wiredweird said in "Good, for the dedicated reader". I just wanted to add that I believe that this book would be totally unreadable to all biologists that do not also have a fairly strong math or computer science background. As a computer scientist though, I found that this book was very useful because the explanations presented went beyond the frequently used buzzwords and included math/graph explanations of the techniques. While there is no code to copy from the book, I found most explanations sufficient enough that I could implement many of the techniques on my own if I wanted to.