armamentarium cont. - MacClade and DELTA and SYN-TAX 5.1

[Tim Dickinson]

re the (excerpted) message below, yet another use for nexus-encoded _tree_ data
from macclade or delta is to look at them with the syn-tax package by j. podani (see
http://ramet.elte.hu/~podani for info).  the routines provided enable the user to
import trees in both nexus and ntsys-pc formats (and to convert between these
two), calculate tree descriptors, and make multivariate comparisons (cluster
analyses, ordinations) of the trees.  randomization procedures are available with
which to evaluate the significance of tree comparisons.  it doesn't shine your
shoes, but the package does contain a pretty complete array of routines for
analyzing multivariate data with respect to distances, covariance structures, and
information theory statistics.  it also allows users to rank descriptors and do
simulated sampling of a 2-d frame.  graphical output can be sent to .tif and .pcx
files as well as to a laserjet printer.  it's available for _both_ pc and mac platforms
and has worked well for me, just like both delta and macclade.

cheers, ---tad.

Derek Sikes wrote:

...The DELTA package was designed to address many needs of the taxonomist,
but its ability to create  publication-ready descriptions from coded data
is exceptionally powerful (and all the more so as one's species list
grows beyond ten or so).

Mike Dallwitz  has written a small executable to translate a NEXUS file
(the file format of MacClade and PAUP et al.) into a DELTA ITEMS file
(the list of species with their coded character states)...


<++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
<Tim Dickinson (tim.dickinson at utoronto.ca, timd at rom.on.ca)
<Vascular Plant Herbarium (TRT)
<Center for Biodiversity & Conservation Biology
<Royal Ontario Museum
<100 Queen's Park
<Toronto  ON  Canada  M5S 2C6
<Phone (416) 586 8032
<
<See also:
<http://www.botany.utoronto.ca/faculty/dickinson/
<and other sites with links there.
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