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Phylogeny and

Systematics
putting things in order
Definitions
• Phylogeny (group origin)
– The evolutionary history of a species or
group of related species
• Systematics
– The use of morphological (appearance),
and molecular comparisons to infer
evolutionary relationships

23.1
Determining Phylogeny
• Organisms that share very similar
morphologies or similar DNA
sequences are likely to be more closely
related than organisms with vastly
different structures or sequences

Phylogenetic Tree
Analogy vs. Homology
• A potential
misconception in
constructing a phylogeny
– Is morphological similarity
due to convergent
evolution, called analogy,
rather than shared
ancestry, called homology

23.2
Carolus Linnaeus Developed
• Taxonomy
– the organization of organisms into
categories based on a set of
characteristics
• Binomial nomenclature
– the two-part format of the scientific name
of an organism (genus and species)
– The genus is capitalized and both words
are italicized in print
23.3
Hierarchical Classification
• Linnaeus also introduced a system
– For grouping species in increasingly
broad categories
Panthera
Species pardus

Panthera
Genus

Felidae
Family

Carnivora
Order

Mammalia
Class

Phylum Chordata

Animalia
Kingdom
23.3/23.4
Eukarya
Domain
How is taxonomic classification
different from phylogenetic
systematics?
Phylogenetic
Taxonomy
Systematics

Does not Determines


consider Groups organisms evolutionary
evolutionary using specific history
history characters
Linking Taxonomy and
Phylogeny
• Systematists depict

Species
Panthera Mephitis Lutra lutra Canis Canis

evolutionary pardus mephitis (European familiaris lupus


(leopard) (striped skunk) otter) (domestic dog) (wolf)

relationships
– In branching
Genus
Panthera Mephitis Lutra Canis

phylogenetic trees
Family
called cladograms Felidae Mustelidae Canidae
Order

Carnivora

23.5
• Each branch point
– Represents the divergence of two species

Leopard Domestic cat

Common ancestor
23.5
• “Deeper” branch points
– Represent progressively greater amounts
of divergence

Wolf Leopard Domestic cat

Common ancestor
23.5
Cladistics
Cladistics

ian
ila

ib

R an
ph

et

ph
el

se
– the use of cladograms to

so

m
nc

sh

rd

ou
Am

Hu
ro

at
La

Bi
Fi
D

M
Mesozoic Cenozoic
compare the evolutionary

65.5
history of different groups
– depicts the number of

251
evolutionary changes with lines

Paleozoic
of different lengths

542
Proterozoic

Millions of
years ago

23.5

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