BIOL 1123 Lecture Notes - Lecture 37: Convergent Evolution
13 Apr 2018
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Document Summary
Systematics: study of biological diversity and evolutionary relationships. Biologists use this to develop the methods to construct taxonomic groups. Phylogeny: evolutionary history of a species or a group of species. Helps us understand the relationships among ancestors and their descendants. Clade: also known as a monophyletic group, is a group of species (taxon) consisting of the most recent common ancestor and all of its descendants. Homology: similarities among various species that occur because the species are derived from a common ancestor. Morphological analysis helps us analyze similarities and differences based on traits. Convergent evolution can sometimes cause errors if a researcher assumes that a particular trait arose only once and that all species having the trait are derived from a common ancestor. Molecular systematics involves the analysis of genetic data to identify and study genetic homology and reconstruct phylogenetic trees.
