Phylogeny

What is phylogeny

the evolutionary history of a group of organisms

what is a phylogenetic tree

a diagram showing how different organisms are related

Why do we use phylogenetic trees

it helps scientists visually show the relationships in an easy to interpret way

outgroup

organism(s) related to but not part of groups interests

ingroup

species of interest

root

most recent common ancestor of all ingroup species

sister taxa

closest relatives

branch

represents intermediate steps/species

character

a trait (either physical or genetic)

character state

different conditions in which a character can exist

Parsimony

hypothesis that requires the least amount of changes is the most likely

ancestral character

a trait shared with a common ancestor

derived

a trait that is the result of evolutionary processes that changed the ancestral character to something different

homologous traits

traits that are the same due to a common ancestor

analogous traits

traits that are the same but evolved independently (no recent common ancestor)