SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 2403.14217

Maximizing Phylogenetic Diversity under Time Pressure: Planning with Extinctions Ahead

Abstract

Phylogenetic Diversity (PD) is a measure of the overall biodiversity of a set of present-day species (taxa) within a phylogenetic tree. In Maximize Phylogenetic Diversity (MPD) one is asked to find a set of taxa (of bounded size/cost) for which this measure is maximized. MPD is a relevant problem in conservation planning, where there are not enough resources to preserve all taxa and minimizing the overall loss of biodiversity is critical. We consider an extension of this problem, motivated by real-world concerns, in which each taxon not only requires a certain amount of time to save, but also has an extinction time after which it can no longer be saved. In addition there may be multiple teams available to work on preservation efforts in parallel; we consider two variants of the problem based on whether teams are allowed to collaborate on the same taxa. These problems have much in common with machine scheduling problems, (with taxa corresponding to tasks and teams corresponding to machines), but with the objective function (the phylogenetic diversity) inspired by biological considerations. Our extensions are, in contrast to the original MPD, NP-hard, even in very restricted cases. We provide several algorithms and hardness-results and thereby show that the problems are fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) when parameterized the target phylogenetic diversity, and that the problem where teams are allowed to collaborate is FPT when parameterized the acceptable loss of diversity.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Mark Jones, Jannik Schestag. 2024-03-21. Maximizing Phylogenetic Diversity under Time Pressure: Planning with Extinctions Ahead. https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14217

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

The Computational Complexity of Holant Problems on 4-regular Graphs from the Stable Subgroup Sequence of $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$

The Holant framework provides a general setting for studying counting problems and includes graph homomorphisms (\#GH) and counting constraint satisfaction problems (\#CSP) as special cases. Over the past twenty years, a series of computational complexity dichotomies have been established for Holant problems, but the classification for complex-valued signatures is still open. The main obstacle is the case in which all signatures have even arity. In this paper, we establish a dichotomy for Holant problems with a complex-valued 4-ary signature, which is a key base case for the full classification of Holant problems. We present a new strategy by introducing Schur's theorem, the classification of finite subgroups of $\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})$ and stable subgroup sequences into the proof. These new techniques are of independent interest.

cs.CC

Topology inside NC$^1$

We show that ACC$^0$ is precisely what can be computed with constant-width circuits of polynomial size and polylogarithmic genus. This extends a characterization given by Hansen, showing that planar constant-width circuits also characterize ACC$^0$. Thus polylogarithmic genus provides no additional computational power in this model. We consider other generalizations of planarity, including crossing number and thickness. We show that constant-width circuits of polynomial size and thickness two already suffice to capture all of NC$^1$.

cs.CC