Phylogenies

Question 1

What is Taxonomy?

Answer 1

The science of naming, describing, and classifying organisms via binomial nomenclature

Question 2

What is Systematics?

Answer 2

The classification of organisms based on their evolutionary history or phylogeny using phylogenetic trees

Question 3

What is Cladistics?

Answer 3

Classifying organisms based on descent from common ancestors

Question 4

What does it mean for species to be Homologous?

Answer 4

The species anatomical features are shared because of an evolutionary relationship

Question 5

What is Analogous?

Answer 5

Shared traits were not inherited from the same common ancestor, and instead were a product of convergent evolution

Question 6

Why does the use of amino and nucleic acid sequences dominate over gross morphology when making phylogenies?

Answer 6

The data is objective and there is just so much data

Question 7

What is a Clade?

Answer 7

An ancestral species and all of its descendents

Question 8

What is a Polytomy and what does it represent?

Answer 8

Any node with more than 2 branches used to indicate the pattern of divergence is unclear

Question 9

What is a Sister Taxa?

Answer 9

2 taxa that share a single immediate common ancestor

Question 10

What does it mean for a clade to be Monophyletic?

Answer 10

All members of the group stem from the same most common ancestor and no species stemming from that ancestor are missing

Question 11

What does it mean for a clade to be Paraphyletic?

Answer 11

All members stem from the same most common ancestor but one (or very few) taxa stemming from that ancestor are missing

(Group contains most but not all)

Question 12

What does it mean for a clade to be Polyphyletic?

Answer 12

The group contains members with features that are similar due to convergent evolution rather than homology

Question 13

What is the term for using the least complicated plausible explaination as the correct explaination?

Answer 13

Maximum Parsimony