BIOL1006 Lecture 7: Lecture 7- phylogenetics
9 Jun 2018
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Lecture 7- Phylogenetic
Phylogenetics
• Every organisms on earth rose from a common ancestor
• Phylogenetics: (aka cladistics) the study of evolutionary relationships
between biological entities
• E.g. species, populations, individuals, sequences (DNA, RNA, amino acids)
• Phylogeny/ phylogenetic tree/ cladogram
Why is phylogenetic important?
• Answer big evolutionary questions
- E.g. how are millions of species on earth related to each other?
• Understand more about our own origins
- E.g. when did humans start wearing clothes?
• Practical reasons
- E.g. relatives of cultivated species
- Conservation
- Track viral evolution, track outbreak and spread, predict future, come up
with control measures
What does phylogeny represent?
• The history of lineage that has branched over time
• Two living species are closely related if their most recent common
ancestor lived close to the present
• Can be time calibrated- branch lengths proportional to evolutionary time
• Clade: a group of organisms related by decent (monophyletic group)
