Phylogenetics

Question 1

What is parsimony?

Answer 1

it assumes that the simplest explanation is true

Question 2

What is cladistics?

Answer 2

method of building phylogenetic trees which ignores morphological divergence which produces phylogenetic hypotheses and classifications

Question 3

What does bifurcating mean?

Answer 3

splits in 2 or when branches split in 2

Question 4

What is a clade?

Answer 4

all descendants of a common ancestor

Question 5

What are the 4 types of characters?

Answer 5

1. Homologous characters
2. Analogous characters
3. Ancestral characters
4. Derived characters

Question 6

What are homologous characters?

Answer 6

• they reflect underlying genetic similarities

- they indicate common ancestors/genetic relationships

Question 7

What are analogous characters?

Answer 7

characters in different animals that serve the same function

Question 8

What are ancestral characters?

Answer 8

old forms of new traits

Question 9

What are derived characters?

Answer 9

new forms of traits

Question 10

What are the 3 principles of monophyly?

Answer 10

1. Monophyletic taxa
2. Polyphyletic taxa
3. Paraphyletic taxa

Question 11

What are monophyletic taxa?

Answer 11

derived from a single ancestral species

Question 12

What are polyphyletic taxa?

Answer 12

includes species from separate evolutionary lineages

Question 13

What are paraphyletic taxa?

Answer 13

includes an ancestor and some of its descendants but not all

Question 14

What are traditional evolutionary systematics?

Answer 14

places together groups of species sharing ancestral and derived characters

Question 15

What is convergent evolution?

Answer 15

similarity is not due to common ancestry, homologous traits will support the correct phylogeny

Question 16

What are molecular phylogenetics?

Answer 16

uses molecular differences to build evolutionary trees, DNA sequences and amino acid sequences are most commonly used, it marks how much evolutionary change has occurred

Question 17

What are the 2 types of classification?

Answer 17

1. Monophyletic groups

2. Non-monophyletic groups

Question 18

What are monophyletic groups?

Answer 18

includes all taxa that descend from a common ancestor

Question 19

What are non-monophyletic groups?

Answer 19

some but not all of the descendants are from a common ancestor

Question 20

What are the 2 types of evolutionary traits?

Answer 20

1. homologous traits

2. convergent evolution

Question 21

What are homologous traits/

Answer 21

shared by taxa due to inheritance by a common ancestor

Question 22

What is convergent evolution?

Answer 22

independant evolutionary events resulting in similar solutions to similar environments