26.3__Shared_characters_are_used_to_construct_phylogenetic_trees

Homologous features

Traits that are similar due to shared ancestry, crucial for reconstructing phylogenies.

Cladistics

An approach to systematics that classifies organisms based on common ancestry.

Clade

A group of organisms that includes an ancestor and all its descendants.

Monophyletic group

A clade that includes an ancestral species and all of its descendants.

Paraphyletic group

A group that includes an ancestral species and some, but not all, of its descendants.

Polyphyletic group

A group that includes distantly related species and lacks their most recent common ancestor.

Shared ancestral character

A trait that originated in an ancestor of the taxon and is shared with its descendants.

Shared derived character

An evolutionary novelty that is unique to a particular clade.

Outgroup

A species or group of species closely related to but not part of the study group.

Maximum parsimony

A principle that suggests the simplest explanation that is consistent with the data is preferred.

Maximum likelihood

An approach that identifies the tree most likely to produce a given set of DNA data based on probability rules.

Phylogenetic bracketing

A method used to predict that features shared by closely related organisms are present in their common ancestor.