Phyloage is an experimental program to calculate time estimates (TMRCA, Time To Most Recent Common Ancestor) from SNP based phylogenetic trees.
It uses STR mutation counts for each node of the phylogenetic tree and thus tries to circumvent the traditional shortcomings of STR counting, which is often heavily influenced by younger family branches.
The program can also be used to generate time estimates from the number of SNP mutations on each branch of a phylogenetic tree. The algorithm
- uses weighted averages.
- performs a top down recalculation of the input tree so that subclades can never be older than it's parent.
- calculates 95% confidence intervals analytically.