Phylogenetics
From Palaeos
In biology, phylogenetics Greek: phylon = tribe, race and genetikos = relative to birth, from genesis = birth) is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e.g., species, populations). Also known as phylogenetic systematics, phylogenetics treats a species as a group of lineage-connected individuals over time. Phylogenetics can be defined as systematics, with the organizing principle being evolution. Phylogenetic taxonomy, which is an offshoot of, but not a logical consequence of, phylogenetic systematics, constitutes a means of classifying groups of organisms according to degree of evolutionary relatedness.
The most commonly used methods to infer phylogenies include parsimony, maximum likelihood, and MCMC-based Bayesian inference. Distance-based methods construct trees based on overall similarity which is often assumed to approximate phylogenetic relationships. All methods depend upon an implicit or explicit mathematical model describing the evolution of characters observed in the species included, and are usually used for molecular phylogeny where the characters are aligned nucleotide or amino acid sequences.
| PHYLOGENETICS |
| Cladistics | Gene transfer | Molecular phylogeny | Phylogenetic taxonomy | Phylogenetic tree | Taxon sampling |
[edit] External links
- The Tree of Life
- PhyloCode
- UCMP Exhibit Halls: Phylogeny Wing
- Willi Hennig Society
- Filogenetica.org in Spanish
- PhyloPat, Phylogenetic Patterns
