Bijections between the multifurcating unlabeled rooted trees and the positive integers

Abstract

Colijn and Plazzotta (2018) [1] described a bijective scheme for associating the unlabeled bifurcating rooted trees with the positive integers. In mathematical and biological applications of unlabeled rooted trees, however, nodes of rooted trees are sometimes multifurcating rather than bifurcating. Building on the bijection between the unlabeled bifurcating rooted trees and the positive integers, we describe bijective schemes for associating the unlabeled multifurcating rooted trees with the positive integers. We devise bijections with the positive integers for a set of trees in which each non-leaf node has exactly k child nodes, and for a set of trees in which each non-leaf node has at most k child nodes. The calculations make use of Macaulay's binomial expansion formula. The generalization to multifurcating trees can assist with the use of unlabeled trees for applications in evolutionary biology, such as the measurement of phylogenetic patterns of genetic lineages in pathogens.