BISC 300 Chapter Notes - Chapter 20: Molecule, Coalescent Theory, Hominidae
Document Summary
Chapter 20. 1: relationships among humans and extant apes. Evolutionary relationships between humans, 2 species of chimpanzees and gorillas are disputed. Morphological and molecular analyses show that humans are closely related to gorillas and chimpanzees. Shows different possible resolutions for the evolutionary relationships between the 2 chimpanzees, gorillas and humans. These trees are based on mitochondrial dna or other loci in the dna. The most likely tree is the one showing that gorillas diverged first, then humans, followed by the 2 chimpanzee species. Most analyses done by researchers show that chimpanzees are humans" closest relatives. Figure 20. 4 shows a detailed phylogeny of all great apes using the mitochondrial. Dna, which shows how humans and chimpanzees are each other"s closest relatives. If constructing a tree based on a gene, it may show different relationships among the species because different genes may give different histories.