What Is Parsimonious Fashion ?

Question

[aravind121]

What is the meaning of following phrase,

" Except for two mutations all of them are accumulated in parsimonious fashion"

Context:

Authors had built a phylogenetic tree, using SNP information observed between several bacterial isolates belonging to same lineage.

Answer 1

[Neilfws]

In this context, parsimonious means something like "simplest", or "making the least assumptions." If 2 sequences, A and B, differ, the smallest number of mutations required to get from A to B is said to be the most "parsimonious" explanation.

See for example:

• Principles of Parsimony Analysis
• Maximum Parsimony analysis
• Parsimony

[aravind121]

Thanks for info.