Counting, grafting and evolving binary trees

Abstract

Binary trees are fundamental objects in models of evolutionary biology and population genetics. Here, we discuss some of their combinatorial and structural properties as they depend on the tree class considered. Furthermore, the process by which trees are generated determines the probability distribution in tree space. Yule trees, for instance, are generated by a pure birth process. When considered as unordered, they have neither a closed-form enumeration nor a simple probability distribution. But their ordered siblings have both. They present the object of choice when studying tree structure in the framework of evolving genealogies.