Random Forest

Models for generating random evolutionary trees can proceed forward in time or backward in time. In some backward-in-time perspectives, such as in the Yule-Harding model for the random joining of evolutionary lineages, pairs of lineages from an initial set successively coalesce until a common ancestor is reached. The set of trees present at an intermediate stage of this random process of coalescence from \(n\) lineages to one lineage is a random forest — just like this collection of boxed trees.

Photo: Alissa Severson, May 4, 2018