LIMES

LIMES performs qualitative comparisons of species partitions (Lines of Incongruence in Multiple Species partitions) to quantify incongruence among species delimitation (SD) methods and taxonomic samples.

Key Features:

• Methodology-agnostic comparison: Evaluates and compares species partitions without requiring reference to a specific theoretical background or reference topology, enabling comparison across diverse SD approaches and taxonomic samples.
• Automated implementation of published indexes: Incorporates and automates four previously published indexes to provide standardized, qualitative measures of congruence among species partitions.
• Automatic partition comparison: Performs automatic calculation of qualitative comparisons between partitions derived from distinct SD methods.

Scientific Applications:

• Assessment of incongruence in SD studies: Identifies and characterizes discordance among species delimitation methods and taxonomic samples.
• Support for taxonomic refinement: Provides comparative evidence to assist systematists and evolutionary biologists in refining species boundaries and taxonomic classifications.

Methodology:

Automatic calculation of qualitative comparisons of species partitions using four published indexes, implemented without requiring a reference topology.