Computing Hybridization Networks for Multiple Rooted Binary Phylogenetic Trees by Maximum Acyclic Agreement Forests

Abstract: It is a known fact that, given two rooted binary phylogenetic trees, the concept of maximum acyclic agreement forests is sufficient to compute hybridization networks with minimum hybridization number. In this work, we demonstrate by first presenting an algorithm and then showing its correctness, that this concept is also sufficient in the case of multiple input trees. More precisely, we show that for computing minimum hybridization networks for multiple rooted binary phylogenetic trees on the same set of taxa it suffices to take only maximum acyclic agreement forests into account. Moreover, this article contains a proof showing that the minimum hybridization number for a set of rooted binary phylogenetic trees on the same set of taxa can be also computed by solving subproblems referring to common clusters of the input trees.