Bininda-Emonds Olaf R P
Lehrstuhl für Tierzucht, Technical University of Munich, D-85354 Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2004 Jun;19(6):315-22. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2004.03.015.
Supertrees result from combining many smaller, overlapping phylogenetic trees into a single, more comprehensive tree. As such, supertree construction is probably as old as the field of systematics itself, and remains our only way of visualizing the Tree of Life as a whole. Over the past decade, supertree construction has gained a more formal, objective footing, and has become an area of active theoretical and practical research. Here, I review the history of the supertree approach, focusing mainly on its current implementation. The supertrees of today represent some of the largest, complete phylogenies available for many groups, but are not without their critics. I conclude by arguing that the ever-growing molecular revolution will result in supertree construction taking on a new role and implementation in the future for analyzing large DNA sequence matrices as part of a divide-and-conquer phylogenetic approach.
超树是通过将许多较小的、相互重叠的系统发育树合并为一棵单一的、更全面的树而形成的。因此，超树构建可能与系统分类学领域本身一样古老，并且仍然是我们将生命之树作为一个整体进行可视化的唯一方法。在过去十年中，超树构建获得了更正式、客观的基础，并已成为一个活跃的理论和实践研究领域。在此，我回顾超树方法的历史，主要关注其当前的应用。如今的超树代表了许多类群可用的一些最大、最完整的系统发育，但也并非没有批评者。我在结论中指出，不断发展的分子革命将导致超树构建在未来承担新的角色并以新的方式应用，作为分而治之的系统发育方法的一部分来分析大型DNA序列矩阵。
