"In biology, phylogenetics is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups of organisms."
The study of the evolutionary relationships between organisms.
Systematics: Systematics deals with the classification and naming of living organisms based on their shared characteristics and evolutionary relationships. It forms the foundation of phylogenetics.
Phylogenetic Trees: Phylogenetic trees are graphical representations of the evolutionary relationships among different species. They can be constructed using various methods, such as maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference.
Cladistics: Cladistics is a method of classification that groups species based on shared traits and evolutionary relationships. Cladograms are diagrams that represent the evolutionary relationships among different species based on shared traits.
Molecular Evolution: Molecular evolution is the study of how DNA sequences change over time and how these changes can be used to infer evolutionary relationships among different species. Phylogenetic trees can be constructed based on differences in DNA sequences.
Biogeography: Biogeography is the study of the distribution of plants and animals across different regions of the world based on their evolutionary relationships.
Fossil Record: The fossil record provides evidence for the evolutionary history of life on Earth. It can be used to infer the evolutionary relationships among different species and to estimate the age of different branches in the phylogenetic tree.
Comparative Morphology: Comparative morphology compares the physical structures and anatomy of different organisms to identify similarities and differences and to infer evolutionary relationships.
Evolutionary Genetics: Evolutionary genetics is the study of how genes and genomes evolve over time and how they can be used to infer evolutionary relationships.
Molecular Clock: The molecular clock is a technique used to estimate the time of evolutionary divergence between different species based on differences in DNA sequences.
Molecular Markers: Molecular markers are specific DNA sequences that are used to identify and track different evolutionary lineages in a population or species.
Ancestral Trait Reconstruction: Ancestral trait reconstruction involves inferring the ancestral traits of a group of organisms based on the traits of their descendants.
Convergence and Divergence: Convergence occurs when different species evolve similar traits independently due to similar selection pressures, while divergence occurs when species evolve different traits due to different selection pressures.
Homology and Analogy: Homology refers to traits that are inherited from a common ancestor, while analogy refers to traits that evolved independently in different lineages due to convergence.
Rate of Evolution: The rate of evolution varies among different species and can be used to infer differences in their evolutionary history and relationships.
Phylogeography: Phylogeography combines the study of phylogenetics with biogeography to understand how populations and species have evolved and dispersed across different regions of the world.
Molecular phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on molecular data, specifically DNA and RNA sequences.
Morphological phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on physical characteristics such as shape, size, and structure.
Paleontological phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on fossil records.
Behavioral phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on their behavioral characteristics and patterns.
Biogeographical phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on their geographic distribution and history.
Ontogenetic phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on their developmental patterns and processes.
Ecological phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on their ecological interactions and relationships.
Systematics phylogenetics: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms and their classification into hierarchies based on morphological or molecular data.
Phylogeography: This is the study of historical and contemporary processes that have generated, and now maintain, the geographic patterns of genetic variation within and among species.
Phylogenomic: This is the study of evolutionary relationships among organisms based on genomic information.
"These relationships are determined by phylogenetic inference methods that focus on observed heritable traits, such as DNA sequences, protein amino acid sequences, or morphology."
"The result of such an analysis is a phylogenetic tree—a diagram containing a hypothesis of relationships that reflects the evolutionary history of a group of organisms."
"The tips of a phylogenetic tree can be living taxa or fossils, and represent the 'end' or the present time in an evolutionary lineage."
"A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor of the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about the ancestral line, and does not show the origin or 'root' of the taxa in question or the direction of inferred evolutionary transformations."
"Such uses have become central to understanding biodiversity, evolution, ecology, and genomes."
"Phylogenetics is a component of systematics that uses similarities and differences of the characteristics of species to interpret their evolutionary relationships and origins."
"In the field of cancer research, phylogenetics can be used to study the clonal evolution of tumors and molecular chronology, predicting and showing how cell populations vary throughout the progression of the disease and during treatment."
"The evolutionary processes behind cancer progression are quite different from those in species and are important to phylogenetic inference; these differences manifest in at least four areas: the types of aberrations that occur, the rates of mutation, the intensity, and high heterogeneity - variability - of tumor cell subclones."
"Phylogenetics allows scientists to organize species and can show which species are likely to have inherited particular traits that are medically useful, such as producing biologically active compounds."
"For example, in drug discovery, venom-producing animals are particularly useful. Venoms from these animals produce several important drugs, e.g., ACE inhibitors and Prialt (Ziconotide)."
"In forensic science, phylogenetic tools are useful to assess DNA evidence for court cases."
"HIV forensics uses phylogenetic analysis to track the differences in HIV genes and determine the relatedness of two samples."
"HIV forensics does have its limitations, i.e., it cannot be the sole proof of transmission between individuals and phylogenetic analysis, which shows transmission relatedness, does not indicate direction of transmission."