Hi, I'm looking for an efficient way to do compare group topology between trees when I have multiple individuals per group (see example below). To do this, I would like to (i) compile a list of observed Newick topologies and (ii) determine which topology fits a given tree. I can do this manually for a small number of trees (see example), but my final dataset will consist of ~3000, many of which are expected to share common topologies.
Can you offer any suggestions on how to compile a list of observed topologies and to determine which topology fits a given tree? Thank you very much! Also, if you're familiar with a method starting with another format (e.g. hclust or phylo objects in R) or another strategy to determine which trees share a structure, that would work as well!
An example comparison:
Group 1 contains individuals 1 and 2; Group 2 contains individuals 4 and 5, Group 3 contains individuals 9, 10, and 11.
Newick1: ((9:0.01,(10:0.44,11:0.44):0.01):0,((4:0.14,5:0.14):0,(1:0.40,2:0.40):0):0)
Collapsed tree because I don't care about differences in branch length
Newick1: ((9,(10,11)),((4,5),(1,2)))
Newick2: ((10,(9,11)),((4,5),(1,2)))
Newick3: ((1,2),((4,5),(9,(10,11)))
Newick4: ((10,11),(9,((4,5),(1,2)))
Result: A compiled list of 4 newick files because the topology for each tree differs. Then a matrix saying Newick1 goes into type1; Newick2 into type2; etc.
From this information, I can then determine that trees1/2 share a group-level topology (because only individuals within a group are switched), tree3 represents a different topology, and group3 is paraphyletic in tree4.
