An alternating labeling on a spanning tree of Seifert graphs and applications in knot theory

The existence of basket, flat plumbing and flat plumbing basket surfaces of a link was first proven from a braid representative of the link. In the present article, we show the existence of such surfaces from an induced graph of the link. Consequently, we define the basket number, flat plumbing number and flat plumbing basket number of a link. Then we provide several upper bounds for these plumbing numbers and study the relation between these plumbing numbers and the genera of links.