Explain the relationship between phytogeny, systematics, and taxonomy. Describe

Question

Explain the relationship between phytogeny, systematics, and taxonomy. Describe the numbered features on the tree: Referring to the above tree, what can and can't we infer about the species relationships? You are a capable scientist that loves to eat corn based snacks and cereals. Different companies manufacture some of the snacks and cereals you buy and you are curious whether or not they use GMO corn. Devise a simple experiment that involves the use of creating a phylogenetic tree to determine whether or not these products contain GMO corn. When comparing morphological features in an attempt to construct a phytogeny, how would one differentiate between homology and analogy? Molecular data can also exhibit homology and analogy. When sequences of distant species match this is termed molecular homoplasy and computer tools have been developed to determine the likelihood of this event. Furthermore, closely related species that undergo divergent evolution due to differential selection in different habitats can have seemingly dissimilar sequences even though they are closely related. Analyzing these sequences often involves properly aligning them to reveal homology within the sequence. Align the following sequences and circle homologous regions. Cladistics groups taxa based on shared derived characteristics in an effort to classify groups based on common descent. What does this mean? Give an example of a group with a shared derived character? Construct three trees using the letters A-F that exhibit: monophyletic clade, paraphyletic clade, polyphyletic clade. Compare shared derived and shared ancestral characters. What is the significance of including an outgroup when generating phylogenetic trees based on derived characters?

Explanation / Answer

1. Phylogy is tree of life, which shows how a life form is related to every other life form. Systematics is the procedure or attmept to classify animals according to their phylogeny. The phylogenetic relationship among organisms is considered for systematic classification of organisms. Taxonomy is the process of given names to living beins. It obeys specific set of rules so that an organism can be easily identified of its position in the systematics.

2. Common ancester of all taxa: a common ancestor is the organism which gave rise to all the diverse group of organisms of its kind. In the example shown, all the organisms like A,B, C, and D have originated from a common ancestor. Sister taxa are two groups of organisms that originated from the same node in a phylogenetic tree. The two sister taxa are more closely related to each other than all the other groups in the tree. A node or branch point is the region which indicates the emergence of two different genera or species from a common ancestor. A polytomy is a region in a phylogenetic tree in which the relationships among individuals canot be properly resoled.

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