Constructing phylogenetic networks from trees

We present a new method of constructing a phylogenetic network from a given phylogenetic tree. It is based on a procedure that locally improves the tree. The procedure is quite general and can be applied to phylogenetic networks. By repeating local improvements user can introduce a given number of recombination cycles. A sequence of networks with decreasing distance deviation can be generated. The algorithm is efficient and shows a good performance on an example with plants. This is due to the fact that the update in every step is local and optimal.