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An evolutionary lineage is a temporal series of populations, organisms, cells, or genes connected by a continuous line of descent from ancestor to descendant. [1] [2] Lineages are subsets of the evolutionary tree of life. Lineages are often determined by the techniques of molecular systematics.
Phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) use information on the historical relationships of lineages (phylogenies) to test evolutionary hypotheses.The comparative method has a long history in evolutionary biology; indeed, Charles Darwin used differences and similarities between species as a major source of evidence in The Origin of Species.
A phylogenetic tree, phylogeny or evolutionary tree is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or taxa during a specific time. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In other words, it is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities based upon ...
A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor of the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about the ancestral line, and does not show the origin or "root" of the taxa in question or the direction of inferred evolutionary transformations. [5]
The tree represents a phylogenetic hypothesis of the relations of A, B and C. A node-based definition could read: "the last common ancestor of A and B, and all descendants of that ancestor". Thus, the entire line below the junction of A and B does not belong to the clade to which the name
A phylogenetic network is any graph used to visualize evolutionary relationships (either abstractly or explicitly) [1] between nucleotide sequences, genes, chromosomes, genomes, or species. [2] They are employed when reticulation events such as hybridization, horizontal gene transfer, recombination, or gene duplication and loss are believed to ...
Anagenesis is the gradual evolution of a species that continues to exist as an interbreeding population. This contrasts with cladogenesis, which occurs when there is branching or splitting, leading to two or more lineages and resulting in separate species. [1] Anagenesis does not always lead to the formation of a new species from an ancestral ...
Contrary to popular belief, the algorithm does not explicitly assign particular character states to nodes (branch junctions) on a tree: the fewest steps can involve multiple, equally costly assignments and distributions of evolutionary transitions. What is optimized is the total number of changes.