Phylogeny

• evolution is the gradual change in organisms over time and has led to a huge variety of different organisms on earth, all of which share a common ancestry
• phylogeny is the study of the evolutionary history of groups of organisms
• phylogeny tells us whos related to whom and how closely related they are which can be shown on a phylogenetic tree
• according to phylogenetics, a species is the smallest group that shares a common ancestor of all the family members
• classification systems now take into account phylogeny when arranging organisms into groups. classifiying organisms in this way is known as cladistics