BIO153H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Paclitaxel, Pentastomida, Taxus Baccata
Document Summary
You may find it helpful to refer to the glossary of terms used in phylogenetic analysis (in the folder entitled supporting material for lectures ). Topics: comparing phenetics, linnaean taxonomy and cladistics steps in conducting a cladistic analysis the principle of parsimony some practical applications of phylogenetic analysis. Only characters shared by descent help us reconstruct evolutionary relationships. Characters shared through descent may be symplesiomorphies or synapomorphies. Symplesiomorphies = ancestral homologies shared characters inherited from a distant common ancestor. If the common ancestor is distant, a lot of time has passed and there has been a lot of opportunity for the character to be modified in at least some of the descendents. ) If the common ancestor is recent, little time has passed and thus the character has probably not been modified in the descendents. ) common ancestor. Because synapomorphies are usually found in all descendents, synapomorphies are reliable indicators of shared ancestry.
