Navigation in tree spaces

Abstract

The orientable cover of the moduli space of real genus zero algebraic curves with marked points is a compact aspherical manifold tiled by associahedra, which resolves the singularities of the space of phylogenetic trees. The resolution maps planar metric trees to their underlying abstract representatives, collapsing and folding an explicit geometric decomposition of the moduli space into cubes, endowing the resolving space with an interesting canonical pseudometric. Indeed, the given map can be reinterpreted as relating the real and the tropical versions of the Deligne–Knudsen–Mumford compactification of the moduli space of Riemann spheres.