Phylogeny

• what does phylogeny tell us about

  the evolutionary history of organisms
• what is phylogeny

  The study of the evolutionary history of groups of organisms\
• what does phylogeny tell us

  who is related to whom and how closely related they are
• what have all organisms evolved from

  Shared common ancestors (relatives)

  • This can be shown on a phylogenetic treee
• here is an example of a

  phylogenetic tree

  
• What do phylogenetic trees show

  the relationship between members of families
• what does the first branch point on a phylogenetic tree represent?

  A common ancestor of all the family members
• what do each of the following points of a phylogenetic tree represent

  another common ancestor from which a different group diverged
• when did closely related species diverge away from each other?

  most recently
• who diverged away from each other most recently?

  closely related species