Chapter 23: Understanding Diversity: Systematics

Systematists

Systematists

________ seek to determine evolutionary relationships, or phylogeny, based on shared characteristics.

Taxonomy

________ is the branch of systematics devoted to naming, describing, and classifying organisms.

Homoplasy

The term ________ refers to superficially similar characters that are not homologous.

Scientific

________ names allow biologists from different countries with different languages to communicate about organisms.

Members of Archaea

________ and Bacteria are prokaryotes.

DNA

Comparisons of nucleotide sequences in ________ and RNA, and of amino acid sequences in proteins, provide important information about how closely organisms are related.

binomial system

In the ________ of nomenclature, the basic unit of classification is the species.

node

The ________ represents the most recent common ancestor of the clade represented by the branches.

Classification

________ is the process of arranging organisms into groups based on similarities that reflect evolutionary relationships.

cladogram

In a(n) ________ each branch represents a clade, a group of organisms with a common ancestor.

molds

The fungi, which include ________, yeasts, and mushrooms, absorb nutrients produced by other organisms.

Molecular systematics

________ depends on molecular structure to clarify phylogeny.

Cladists

________ use shared derived characters to reconstruct evolutionary relationships and diagram these relationships in cladograms.

outgroup analysis

They use ________ to determine which characters in a given group of taxa are ancestral and which are derived.

Outgroup

A(n) ________ is a taxon that diverged earlier than any of the other taxa being investigated.

Polyphyletic group

A(n) ________ consists of organisms that evolved from different recent ancestors.

Phylogenetic systematists

________ (cladists) use shared derived characters to determine relationships among groups of organisms.

three domain classification system

The ________ assigns organisms to domains Archaea, Bacteria, or Eukarya.

Node

Each ________, or branching point, represents the splitting of two or more new groups from a common ancestor.

Systematics

________ is the scientific study of the diversity of organisms and their evolutionary relationships.

The name of each species has two parts

the genus name followed by the specific epithet