Question

In the Neighbor Joining step, The UPGMA method uses unweighted distances and assumes that all taxa have constant evolutionary rates.

(a) True

(b) False

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I want to ask this question from Distance Based Methods topic in division Phylogenetic Tree Construction Methods and Programs of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

The correct answer is (a) True

To explain: Since this molecular clock assumption is often not met in biological sequences, to build a more accurate phylogenetic trees, the neighbor joining (NJ) method can be used, which is somewhat similar to UPGMA in that it builds a tree by using stepwise reduced distance matrices. However, the NJ method does not assume the taxa to be equidistant from the root.