Date of Award
Spring 4-9-2012
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Mathematics
First Thesis Reader
Christopher Towse
Second Thesis Reader
Ami Radunskaya
Rights Information
© 2012 Anna Cho
Terms of Use & License Information
Abstract
Maximum likelihood methods are used to estimate the phylogenetic trees for a set of species. The probabilities of DNA base substitutions are modeled by continuous-time Markov chains. We use these probabilities to estimate which DNA bases would produce the data that we observe. The topology of the tree is also determined using base substitution probabilities and conditional likelihoods. Felsenstein [2] introduced this method of finding an estimate for the maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree. We will explore this method in detail in this paper.
Recommended Citation
Cho, Anna, "Constructing Phylogenetic Trees Using Maximum Likelihood" (2012). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 46.
http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/46