Transition Confidence and Modified Mean Values: Confidence Measures for Hypotheses of Character State Transition between Nodes and Ancestral State Optimizations

A measure is introduced to quantify the reliability of character state transitions and character state stasis (lack of character state change between nodes). The mean value of a character state at an internal node is altered to obtain a measure termed the modified mean. Modified mean values at connecting nodes are employed to determine the support for hypotheses of character state transition/stasis between the nodes. The lowest of the two neighboring modified mean values implied by an hypothesis of character state transition/stasis is used as a direct measure of support for that hypotheses of character state transformation or stasis between the respective nodes.