Question

Why is it seldom possible to exhaustively check all pos- sible trees for a suite of taxa? What are some shortcuts?

A. Limited computational resources make exhaustive checking impractical; shortcuts include heuristic algorithms like neighbor-joining.
B. Lack of interest in comprehensive analysis; shortcuts involve manual inspection of each potential tree.
C. Exhaustive checking is always possible but time-consuming; shortcuts include using smaller datasets.
D. Exhaustive checking is not necessary for accurate results; shortcuts involve random selection of trees for analysis.

Answer 1

Exhaustively checking all possible trees for a suite of taxa is seldom possible due to limited computational resources. Heuristic algorithms like neighbor-joining provide shortcuts to find the best tree. Using smaller datasets is another shortcut to reduce the computational burden.

Step-by-step explanation:

Exhaustively checking all possible trees for a suite of taxa is seldom possible due to limited computational resources, making it impractical. One shortcut is the use of heuristic algorithms like neighbor-joining. These algorithms search for the best tree by considering the fewest number of character reversals, independent character changes, and character changes throughout the tree. Another shortcut is to use smaller datasets to reduce the computational burden.