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chapter 17 section 2
Systematics
Term | Definition |
---|---|
systematics | the classification of living organisms in terms of their natural relationships; it includes describing naming and classifying the organisms |
phylogenetics | the analysis of evolutionary or ancestral relationships between taxa |
phylogenetic diagram | a branching diagram that models the relationships by ancestry between different species or other taxonomic groups |
cladistics | a phylogenetic classification system that uses shared derived characters and ancestry as the sole criterion for grouping taxa |
shared character | a feature that is shared by all members of a particular group of organisms |
derived character | a feature that evolved only within a particular taxonomic group |
clade | a taxonomic grouping that include only a single ancestor and all of its descendants |
cladogram | a diagram that is based on patterns of shared, derived traits and that shows the evolutionary relationships between groups of organisms |