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In sexually reproducing organisms, genes of two parents mix up randomly(ish) to create offspring, which would suggest a tree structure. No? Tree structure is a
by owl57 5y ago
In sexually reproducing organisms, genes of two parents mix up randomly(ish) to create offspring, which would suggest a tree structure.
No? Tree structure is a simplified model of asexual reproduction, where each organism has one parent, not two.
- wongarsu 5y agoAgreed. Sexual reproduction suggests a unidirectional acyclic graph. Unidirectional acyclic graphs also allow for Neanderthals reproducing with humans, for random mutations, for bacteria exchanging genes asexually, and for genes inherited from virus infections. But "tree of life" is just so much more sexy than "unidirectional acyclic graph of life"
- owl57 5y agoDAG of life sounds pretty sexy if you ask me, but yes, I wouldn't try selling that anywhere outside CS or bioinformatics department.
- xipho 5y agoWhy not? I've heard it before in conversations. Search "inferring species networks from gene trees". Look at the math in RaXML, MrBayes, etc. The intersection of two different fields is often the most interesting, if you can communicate between both.
- masklinn 5y agoAnd at the phylogenetic level even a dag might be too restrictive due to horizontal gene transfers.