Answer to Question #258241 in Molecular Biology for Mayu

Question

If you will construct several phylogenetic trees of mammalian species using protein sequences from cytochrome c, hemoglobin, and fibrinopeptides which trees would have a more or less similar tree topology? Which trees would look very different from each other? Why is this so?

Answer 1

To find the tree that is most parsimonious, biologists use brute computational force. The idea is to build all possible trees for the selected taxa, map the characters onto the trees, and select the tree with the fewest number of evolutionary changes.