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A typical multicast network consists of a single tree, in which only a few internal nodes contribute most resources and are involved in performing the multicast functionality. This leads to an uneven and inefficient utilization of network resources. The problem is more pronounced in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET5), where network resources are limited. One solution is to split the multicast content over a number of trees. This provides several paths for the multicast content and would involve more nodes in implementing multicast functionality. Although this approach improves network utilization, overall multicast latency increases. This paper presents a distributed algorithm to construct multiple edge, sharing trees (MESTs) for small group multicast. MESTs balance the resource allocation and delay constraints by choosing to overlap certain edges that have low weight. Simulation results show that MESTs can generate multicast networks that have low delays and fair resource utilization. MESTs are designed to work with any form of multicast in both wired and wireless networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]