Synonyms
Definition
Phylogenetics, derived from the Greek terms phylon (meaning “tribe”) and genetikos (meaning “genitive” or origin), is the study of the evolutionary history of species, organisms, genes, or proteins through the construction and analysis of mathematical entities known as trees or phylogenies.
Introduction
Darwin’s The Origin of Species marked the birth of phylogeny, a discipline whose primary aims are to classify all living organisms, grouping all extant descendants of a given ancestor within specific groups or clades; to provide insights into the shared properties of members within each clade; and to allow retro direction, i.e., the ability to infer ancestral properties based on observable characteristics of extant organisms.
A significant limitation of traditional morphology-based phylogeny approaches is the fact that reconstructing ancient evolutionary events requires a vast sum of character changes. Furthermore, many of these morphological...
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Sleator, R. (2013). Phylogenetics, Overview. In: Nelson, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Metagenomics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_708-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_708-9
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