A Phylogenetic Tree Constructing Method Based on Ant Colony Partitioning

A new method for constructing phylogenetic trees from a given set of objects (proteins, species, etc.) is presented. The method bisects the set of gene sequences so that the sequences within one subset have most similarity, and the gene sequences between different subsets have most difference. Recursively repeating such bisecting until procedure until all the subsets contains only one gene sequence. With these subsets, a phylogenetic tree is progressively constructed where the leaves are the gene sequences. Each level of bisecting is based on an extension of ant colony optimization for traveling salesman problem. Experimental results show that our algorithm is easier to implement and more efficient. It can convergence faster and obtain higher quality results than other methods.