WASTER: Practical <i>de novo</i> phylogenomics from low-coverage short reads.

ABSTRACT: The advent of affordable whole-genome sequencing has spurred numerous large-scale projects aimed at inferring the tree of life, yet achieving a complete species-level phylogeny remains a distant goal due to significant costs and computational demands. Traditional species tree inference methods, though effective, are hampered by the need for high-coverage sequencing, high-quality genomic alignments, and extensive computational resources. To address these challenges, this study introduces WASTER, a novel de novo tool for inferring species trees directly from short-read sequences. WASTER employs a k-mer based approach for identifying variable sites, circumventing the need for genome assembly and alignment. Using simulations, we demonstrate that WASTER achieves accuracy comparable to th

SUBMITTER: Zhang C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11785061 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature