Biodiversity, Shapley value and phylogenetic trees: some remarks (Q2299263)

The purpose of this paper is to study the main differences between the Shapley values for a taxon introduced by \textit{C.-J. Haake} et al. [J. Math. Biol. 56, No. 4, 479--497 (2008; Zbl 1143.92028)] and \textit{M. Fuchs} and \textit{E. Y. Jin} [J. Math. Biol. 71, No. 5, 1133--1147 (2015; Zbl 1355.92074)]. Although these two metrics are based on the same Shapley axiomatic, they do not use the same definition of phylogenetic diversity: the former does not include the root in the subtree while the latter does. This induces two different subsets of potential characteristic functions and different Shapley values. To illustrate this, the author explicitly compute the Shapley values in both cases by identifying, in line with Shapley, the bases of the two different sets of characteristic functions. This gives to the author the opportunity to formally compare the two values and to identify for each phylogenetic tree a set of weights for which these quantities are identical. This clearly raises a second question where prioritization problems are concerned. Although the two Shapley values are different, the main question is do they induce a similar ranking for the different species? To answer this question, it simulate alternative situations and show that the Kendall and Spearman rank correlation coefficients are both close to 1. Bearing in mind that the Shapley value introduced by Fuchs and Jin [loc. cit.] is equal to the Fair Proportion index constructed by \textit{D. Redding} and \textit{A. Mooers}, ``Incorporating evolutionary measures into conservation prioritization'', Conserv Biol. 20, 1670--1678 (2006)], this suggests that the obtained, simpler index can be used in prioritization problems.