The degree of a node (or vertex) in a network is defined by the number
of branches (or edges) that connect to this node. In a phylogenetic
tree, the tips (or terminal nodes) are of degree one, and the
(internal) nodes are of degree two or more.
There are currently two methods for the classes "phylo"
and
"evonet"
. The default of these functions is to return a summary
table with the degrees observed in the tree or network in the first
column, and the number of nodes in the second column. If details
= TRUE
, a vector giving the degree of each node (as numbered in the
edge
matrix) is returned.
The validity of the object is not checked, so degree
can be
used to check problems with badly conformed trees.