How do I interpret the results of the Taxon ID Tree?
BOLD uses neighbour-joining trees which group sequences together by the number of amino acid or nucleotide differences. The arrangement of the specimens in the tree is based on sequence similarities, with the sequences that are most similar placed closer together on the tree, and with the branch length indicating the degree of similarity.
The percentage of similarity between sequences can be measured against the legend (usually 2%) where the longer the branch the more disparity between the sequences. It is often expected that specimens of the same species have more similar sequences and cluster closer together than specimens from different species.
Unexpected outcomes can reveal interesting findings, which could be associated with biologically relevant patterns, or they can reveal errors such as misidentification or contamination of a sample. For more information on how to build a Taxon ID Tree, and the parameters you can select to tailor your tree, please refer to the BOLD Handbook.
(Note: The BOLD Taxon ID Tree does not infer phylogenetic relationships. There may be many ways to interpret a tree, BOLD encourages that you to use your own discretion in making assumptions from the results).
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