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The term sister group is used in phylogenetic analysis, however, only groups identified in the analysis are labeled as "sister groups".. An example is birds, whose commonly cited living sister group is the crocodiles, but that is true only when discussing extant organisms; [3] [4] when other, extinct groups are considered, the relationship between birds and crocodiles appears distant.
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 ]
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 ]
A clade is by definition monophyletic, meaning that it contains one ancestor which can be an organism, a population, or a species and all its descendants. [ note 1 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] The ancestor can be known or unknown; any and all members of a clade can be extant or extinct.
Amborella trichopoda, the most basal extant angiosperm. The flowering plant family Amborellaceae, restricted to New Caledonia in the southwestern Pacific, [n 9] is a basal clade of extant angiosperms, [13] consisting of the most species, genus, family and order within the group that are sister to all other angiosperms (out of a total of about 250,000 angiosperm species).
In evolutionary biology, all life on Earth is theoretically part of a single phylogenetic tree, indicating common ancestry. Phylogenetics is the study of phylogenetic trees. The main challenge is to find a phylogenetic tree representing optimal evolutionary ancestry between a set of species or taxa.
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.
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from taxonomy; pl.: taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking , especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established.