Date of Degree
2011
Document Type
thesis
Degree Name
MS (Master of Science)
Department
Geoscience
First Advisor
Ann F. Budd
Abstract
A morphological phylogenetic analysis of the coral families Oculinidae and Meandrinidae suggest multiple transitions between colonial and solitary forms. Many morphological characters are logically dependent on a taxon being colonial. The treatment of not applicable characters has remained unresolved, with traditional treatments of not applicable characters having well known flaws. A new method for treating not applicable characters, the Not Applicable Corrected Tree Length (NACTL) method, is presented. The NACTL method retrieves a different phylogenetic signal than traditional approaches, but is more consistent with molecular phylogenetic analyses.
Pages
vii, 79
Bibliography
77-79
Copyright
Copyright 2011 Troy Robert Fadiga
Recommended Citation
Fadiga, Troy Robert. "Cladistic analysis of Meandrinidae and Oculinidae (Anthozoa: Scleractinia) with comments on not applicable characters." master's thesis, University of Iowa, 2011.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1136.
NACTL.R (2 kB)
Septa.NTS (17 kB)
FiniteMixture.R (1 kB)
Costa.NTS (4 kB)
Costa.data (1 kB)
Wall.NTS (8 kB)
Wall.data (1 kB)