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Taxon A and taxon B are sister groups to each other. Taxa A and B, together with any other extant or extinct descendants of their most recent common ancestor (MRCA), [Note 1] form a monophyletic group, the clade AB. Clade AB and taxon C are also sister groups. Taxa A, B, and C, together with all other descendants of their MRCA form the clade ABC.
One use is as "nearby group" (plesion means close to in Greek), i.e. sister group to a given taxon, whether that group is a crown group or not. [22] The term may also mean a group, possibly paraphyletic , defined by primitive traits (i.e. symplesiomorphies ). [ 23 ]
Phylogenetic nomenclature is a method of nomenclature for taxa in biology that uses phylogenetic definitions for taxon names as explained below. This contrasts with the traditional method , by which taxon names are defined by a type , which can be a specimen or a taxon of lower rank , and a description in words. [ 1 ]
In biology, taxonomic rank (which some authors prefer to call nomenclatural rank [1] because ranking is part of nomenclature rather than taxonomy proper, according to some definitions of these terms) is the relative or absolute level of a group of organisms (a taxon) in a hierarchy that reflects evolutionary
If the lineages in the phylogenetic tree stand for species, a polytomy shows the simultaneous speciation of three or more species. [6] In particular situations, they may be common, for example when a species that has rapidly expanded its range or is highly panmictic undergoes peripatric speciation in different regions.
In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each other, further blurring any distinctions.
A simple cladogram showing the evolutionary relationships between four species: A, B, C, and D. Here, Species A is the outgroup, and Species B, C, and D form the ingroup. In cladistics or phylogenetics, an outgroup [1] is a more distantly related group of organisms that serves as a reference group when determining the evolutionary relationships of the ingroup, the set of organisms under study ...
In the diagram, lemurs and lorises are sister clades, while humans and tarsiers are not. A clade A is basal to a clade B if A branches off the lineage leading to B before the first branch leading only to members of B. In the adjacent diagram, the strepsirrhine/prosimian clade, is basal to the hominoids/ape clade. In this example, both ...