Distance Calculations and Tree Building

Compute distances from alignments and construct phylogenetic trees.

Required Import

from Bio import Phylo, AlignIO
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import DistanceCalculator, DistanceTreeConstructor
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import DistanceMatrix
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import ParsimonyScorer, ParsimonyTreeConstructor, NNITreeSearcher
from Bio.Phylo.Consensus import strict_consensus, majority_consensus, bootstrap_trees, bootstrap_consensus

Distance Matrix from Alignment

from Bio import AlignIO
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import DistanceCalculator

alignment = AlignIO.read('alignment.fasta', 'fasta')

# Create calculator with distance model
calculator = DistanceCalculator('identity')  # Simple identity-based distance
dm = calculator.get_distance(alignment)
print(dm)

# Available models for DNA
calculator = DistanceCalculator('blastn')  # BLASTN-style distance

# Available models for protein
calculator = DistanceCalculator('blosum62')  # BLOSUM62-based distance

Available Distance Models

Building Trees with Distance Methods

Neighbor Joining (NJ)

from Bio import AlignIO
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import DistanceCalculator, DistanceTreeConstructor

alignment = AlignIO.read('alignment.fasta', 'fasta')
calculator = DistanceCalculator('identity')
dm = calculator.get_distance(alignment)

constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor()
nj_tree = constructor.nj(dm)
Phylo.draw_ascii(nj_tree)

UPGMA

constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor()
upgma_tree = constructor.upgma(dm)
Phylo.draw_ascii(upgma_tree)

One-Step Tree Building

# Build tree directly from alignment
constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor(calculator, 'nj')
tree = constructor.build_tree(alignment)

# Or with UPGMA
constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor(calculator, 'upgma')
tree = constructor.build_tree(alignment)

Pairwise Distances Between Taxa

from Bio import Phylo

tree = Phylo.read('tree.nwk', 'newick')

# Distance between two taxa (sum of branch lengths)
taxon1 = tree.find_any(name='Human')
taxon2 = tree.find_any(name='Mouse')
dist = tree.distance(taxon1, taxon2)
print(f'Distance Human-Mouse: {dist:.4f}')

# All pairwise distances
terminals = tree.get_terminals()
for i, t1 in enumerate(terminals):
    for t2 in terminals[i+1:]:
        d = tree.distance(t1, t2)
        print(f'{t1.name}-{t2.name}: {d:.4f}')

Creating Distance Matrix Manually

from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import DistanceMatrix

names = ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D']
# Lower triangular matrix (including diagonal)
matrix = [
    [0],
    [0.1, 0],
    [0.2, 0.15, 0],
    [0.3, 0.25, 0.2, 0]
]
dm = DistanceMatrix(names, matrix)
print(dm)

# Build tree from custom matrix
constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor()
tree = constructor.nj(dm)

Parsimony Tree Construction

from Bio import AlignIO, Phylo
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import ParsimonyScorer, NNITreeSearcher, ParsimonyTreeConstructor

alignment = AlignIO.read('alignment.fasta', 'fasta')

# Create scorer and searcher
scorer = ParsimonyScorer()
searcher = NNITreeSearcher(scorer)

# Build parsimony tree (needs starting tree)
constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor(DistanceCalculator('identity'), 'nj')
starting_tree = constructor.build_tree(alignment)

pars_constructor = ParsimonyTreeConstructor(searcher, starting_tree)
pars_tree = pars_constructor.build_tree(alignment)

print(f'Parsimony score: {scorer.get_score(pars_tree, alignment)}')
Phylo.draw_ascii(pars_tree)

Bootstrap Analysis

from Bio import AlignIO
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import DistanceCalculator, DistanceTreeConstructor
from Bio.Phylo.Consensus import bootstrap_trees, bootstrap_consensus, majority_consensus

alignment = AlignIO.read('alignment.fasta', 'fasta')
calculator = DistanceCalculator('identity')
constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor(calculator, 'nj')

# Generate bootstrap trees
boot_trees = list(bootstrap_trees(alignment, 100, constructor))
print(f'Generated {len(boot_trees)} bootstrap trees')

# Get bootstrap consensus
consensus = bootstrap_consensus(alignment, 100, constructor, majority_consensus)
Phylo.draw_ascii(consensus)

Consensus Tree Methods

from Bio.Phylo.Consensus import strict_consensus, majority_consensus, adam_consensus

trees = list(Phylo.parse('bootstrap.nwk', 'newick'))

# Strict consensus (only clades in ALL trees)
strict = strict_consensus(trees)

# Majority rule consensus (clades in >50% of trees)
majority = majority_consensus(trees, cutoff=0.5)

# Adam consensus
adam = adam_consensus(trees)

Phylo.draw_ascii(majority)

Tree Depths and Total Length

tree = Phylo.read('tree.nwk', 'newick')

# Total branch length
total = tree.total_branch_length()
print(f'Total branch length: {total:.4f}')

# Depths from root to each node
depths = tree.depths()
for clade, depth in depths.items():
    if clade.is_terminal():
        print(f'{clade.name}: {depth:.4f}')

# Maximum depth (tree height)
tree_height = max(depths.values())
print(f'Tree height: {tree_height:.4f}')

Comparing Tree Distances

tree1 = Phylo.read('tree1.nwk', 'newick')
tree2 = Phylo.read('tree2.nwk', 'newick')

# Compare total branch lengths
len1 = tree1.total_branch_length()
len2 = tree2.total_branch_length()
print(f'Tree 1 total: {len1:.4f}')
print(f'Tree 2 total: {len2:.4f}')

# Compare specific pairwise distances
taxa = ['Human', 'Mouse']
t1 = [tree1.find_any(name=t) for t in taxa]
t2 = [tree2.find_any(name=t) for t in taxa]

d1 = tree1.distance(t1[0], t1[1])
d2 = tree2.distance(t2[0], t2[1])
print(f'Human-Mouse distance: Tree1={d1:.4f}, Tree2={d2:.4f}')

Complete Pipeline: Alignment to Bootstrapped Tree

from Bio import AlignIO, Phylo
from Bio.Phylo.TreeConstruction import DistanceCalculator, DistanceTreeConstructor
from Bio.Phylo.Consensus import bootstrap_consensus, majority_consensus

alignment = AlignIO.read('sequences.aln', 'clustal')
print(f'Alignment: {len(alignment)} sequences, {alignment.get_alignment_length()} positions')

calculator = DistanceCalculator('identity')
constructor = DistanceTreeConstructor(calculator, 'nj')

# Build simple tree
simple_tree = constructor.build_tree(alignment)
simple_tree.ladderize()

# Build bootstrap consensus (100 replicates)
consensus_tree = bootstrap_consensus(alignment, 100, constructor, majority_consensus)
consensus_tree.ladderize()

Phylo.write(simple_tree, 'nj_tree.nwk', 'newick')
Phylo.write(consensus_tree, 'bootstrap_consensus.nwk', 'newick')

Quick Reference: Distance Models

DNA Models

Protein Models

Related Skills

• tree-io - Save constructed trees to files
• tree-visualization - Draw resulting trees
• tree-manipulation - Root and process built trees
• alignment/alignment-io - Read alignments for tree building
• alignment/msa-statistics - Alignment quality before tree building