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The idea of a tree of life arose from ancient notions of a ladder-like progression from lower into higher forms of life (such as in the Great Chain of Being).Early representations of "branching" phylogenetic trees include a "paleontological chart" showing the geological relationships among plants and animals in the book Elementary Geology, by Edward Hitchcock (first edition: 1840).
The tree of life or universal tree of life is a metaphor, conceptual model, and research tool used to explore the evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct, as described in a famous passage in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). [1]
The results are a phylogenetic tree—a diagram setting the hypothetical relationships between organisms and their evolutionary history. [4] The tips of a phylogenetic tree can be living taxa or fossils, which represent the present time or "end" of an evolutionary lineage, respectively. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted.
Pedigrees use a standardized set of symbols, squares represent males and circles represent females. Pedigree construction is a family history, and details about an earlier generation may be uncertain as memories fade. If the sex of the person is unknown, a diamond is used.
The relationship between clades can be described in several ways: A clade located within a clade is said to be nested within that clade. In the diagram, the hominoid clade, i.e. the apes and humans, is nested within the primate clade. Two clades are sisters if they have an immediate common ancestor. In the diagram, lemurs and lorises are sister ...
This display confirms closely related species share color patterns more often than expected at random. Phylogenetic signal is an evolutionary and ecological term, that describes the tendency or the pattern of related biological species to resemble each other more than any other species that is randomly picked from the same phylogenetic tree. [1 ...
Molecular phylogenetics (/ m ə ˈ l ɛ k j ʊ l ər ˌ f aɪ l oʊ dʒ ə ˈ n ɛ t ɪ k s, m ɒ-, m oʊ-/ [1] [2]) is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to determine ...
These branching off points represent a hypothetical ancestor (not an actual entity) which can be inferred to exhibit the traits shared among the terminal taxa above it. [ 4 ] [ 6 ] This hypothetical ancestor might then provide clues about the order of evolution of various features, adaptation, and other evolutionary narratives about ancestors.