Molecular phylogeny practical

Question 1

what is the difference in Phylogram and a Dendrogram representation

Answer 1

Both phylograms and dendrograms are types of diagrams used in phylogenetics to represent the evolutionary relationships between organisms, but they differ in the way they depict these relationships.

Phylogram:

A phylogram is a type of phylogenetic tree where the branch lengths are proportional to the amount of evolutionary change or genetic distance between species or groups of organisms.
In a phylogram, longer branch lengths indicate greater genetic divergence or evolutionary distance between taxa, while shorter branch lengths represent closer relationships or less genetic divergence.
Phylograms are useful for visualizing both the topology (the branching pattern) of the tree and the relative amount of evolutionary change between taxa.
Dendrogram:

A dendrogram is a branching diagram that represents the hierarchical clustering of objects based on their similarity or dissimilarity.
In phylogenetics, a dendrogram may represent the hierarchical clustering of species or groups of organisms based on genetic distance or some other measure of evolutionary relatedness.
Unlike phylograms, dendrograms typically do not include branch lengths proportional to evolutionary distance. Instead, they focus on the branching pattern and the clustering of taxa into groups or clusters.
Dendrograms are often used in hierarchical clustering analysis to visualize the relationships between objects in various fields, including biology, ecology, and data analysis.
In summary, the main difference between a phylogram and a dendrogram lies in the representation of branch lengths: phylograms include branch lengths proportional to evolutionary distance, while dendrograms focus on the branching pattern and clustering of taxa without considering branch lengths. Both types of diagrams are valuable tools for visualizing and interpreting evolutionary relationships in phylogenetics.