Phylogenetics
In biology, Phylogenetics (Greek: phylon = race and genetic = birth) is the taxonomical classification of organisms based on how closely they are related in terms of evolutionary differences.
Phylogeny
Phylogeny (or phylogenesis), is the origin and evolution of a set of organisms, usually of a species. A major task of systematics is to determine the ancestral relationships among known species (both living and extinct), and the most commonly used methods to infer phylogenies include cladistics, phenetics, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian.
During the late 19th century, the theory of recapitulation, or Haeckel's biogenetic law, was widely accepted. This theory was often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", i.e. that the development of an organism exactly mirrors the evolutionary development of the species. The early version of this hypothesis has since been rejected as being oversimplified and misleading. However, modern biology recognizes numerous connections between ontogeny and phylogeny, explains them using evolutionary theory, and views them as supporting evidence for that theory. See the article on ontogeny and phylogeny.
See also
- PhyloCode
- Phylogenetic tree
- Evolutionary tree
- Phylogenetic memory
- Molecular phylogeny
- Bioinformatics
- Important publications in phylogeny
External links
| Basic topics in evolutionary biology |
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| Processes of evolution: macroevolution - microevolution - speciation |
| Mechanisms: selection - genetic drift - gene flow - mutation |
| Modes: anagenesis - catagenesis - cladogenesis |
| History: Charles Darwin - The Origin of Species - modern evolutionary synthesis |
| Subfields: population genetics - ecological genetics - human evolution - molecular evolution - phylogenetics - systematics - evo-devo |
| List of evolutionary biology topics | Timeline of evolution |