Cladistics

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Cladistics

Cladistics (/kləˈdɪstɪks/), from the Ancient Greek κλάδος (kládos, "branch"), is a method of classifying species of organisms into groups called clades, which consist of an ancestor organism and all its descendants.

Etymology

The term "cladistics" is derived from the Ancient Greek word κλάδος (kládos), which means "branch". The name refers to the branching nature of a phylogenetic tree, which is a diagram used to represent the evolutionary relationships between different species.

Related Terms

  • Phylogenetic tree: A diagram that depicts the lines of evolutionary descent of different species, organisms, or genes from a common ancestor.
  • Clade: A group of organisms believed to have evolved from a common ancestor, according to the principles of cladistics.
  • Monophyletic: A term used to describe a group of organisms that forms a clade, meaning it consists of an ancestral species and all its descendants.
  • Paraphyletic: A group of organisms that includes an ancestor but not all of its descendants.
  • Polyphyletic: A group of organisms derived from more than one common evolutionary ancestor or ancestral group and therefore not suitable for placing into the same taxon.
  • Taxonomy (biology): The science of defining and naming groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics.

See Also

External links

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