{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,12]],"date-time":"2025-10-12T03:35:53Z","timestamp":1760240153876,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,3,22]],"date-time":"2019-03-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1553212800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"973 Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China","award":["2013837100"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2013837100"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["41621003"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["41621003"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>To address the instability of phylogenetic trees in morphological datasets caused by missing values, we present a phylogenetic inference method based on a concept decision tree (CDT) in conjunction with attribute reduction. First, a reliable initial phylogenetic seed tree is created using a few species with relatively complete morphological information by using biologists\u2019 prior knowledge or by applying existing tools such as MrBayes. Second, using a top-down data processing approach, we construct concept-sample templates by performing attribute reduction at each node in the initial phylogenetic seed tree. In this way, each node is turned into a decision point with multiple concept-sample templates, providing decision-making functions for grafting. Third, we apply a novel matching algorithm to evaluate the degree of similarity between the species\u2019 attributes and their concept-sample templates and to determine the location of the species in the initial phylogenetic seed tree. In this manner, the phylogenetic tree is established step by step. We apply our algorithm to several datasets and compare it with the maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference methods using the two evaluation criteria of accuracy and stability. The experimental results indicate that as the proportion of missing data increases, the accuracy of the CDT method remains at 86.5%, outperforming all other methods and producing a reliable phylogenetic tree.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e21030313","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,3,29]],"date-time":"2019-03-29T03:50:21Z","timestamp":1553831421000},"page":"313","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["A New Phylogenetic Inference Based on Genetic Attribute Reduction for Morphological Data"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"21","author":[{"given":"Jun","family":"Feng","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi\u2019an 710127, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4547-2135","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zeyun","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi\u2019an 710127, China"}]},{"given":"Hongwei","family":"Feng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi\u2019an 710127, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5549-5691","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Richard F. E.","family":"Sutcliffe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Science and Technology, Northwest University, Xi\u2019an 710127, China"}]},{"given":"Jianni","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Early Life Institute, State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi\u2019an 710069, China"}]},{"given":"Jian","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Early Life Institute, State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi\u2019an 710069, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,3,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"E4","DOI":"10.1038\/nature10544","article-title":"Liu et al. reply","volume":"478","author":"Liu","year":"2011","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"625","DOI":"10.1080\/106351598260635","article-title":"Does adding characters with missing data increase or decrease phylogenetic accuracy?","volume":"47","author":"Wiens","year":"1998","journal-title":"Syst. 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