mrca: Compute the most recent common ancestor of two taxa

In taxodist: Taxonomic Distance and Phylogenetic Lineage Computation

Compute the most recent common ancestor of two taxa

Description

Retrieves the lineages of two taxa and returns the name of their most recent common ancestor (MRCA) — the deepest node shared by both lineages.

Usage

mrca(taxon_a, taxon_b, verbose = FALSE)

Arguments

taxon_a	A character string giving the first taxon name.
taxon_b	A character string giving the second taxon name.
verbose	Logical. If TRUE, prints progress messages. Default FALSE.

Value

A character string giving the name of the MRCA, or NULL if either taxon cannot be found or no common ancestor exists.

Examples

mrca("Tyrannosaurus", "Velociraptor")   # "Tyrannoraptora"
mrca("Tyrannosaurus", "Triceratops")    # "Dinosauria"
mrca("Tyrannosaurus", "Homo")           # "Amniota"

taxodist documentation built on May 6, 2026, 1:06 a.m.