Exam 4: Estimating Evolutionary Trees

A(n)________ [two words] is a novel feature that evolved in a lineage and may be unique to a species or shared among species.

A phylogenetic tree grouping that consists of a common ancestor and all of its descendants is known as a ________ group.

Phylogenetic trees can always be regarded as ________ about evolutionary relationships.

Every node in a phylogenetic tree represents a(n)________.

Explain what parsimony is,and why it is preferred in constructing phylogenetic trees.

Your textbook states that under optimal conditions,all of the methods discussed (parsimony,maximum likelihood,neighbor joining,and Bayesian inference reveal the true branching pattern of the phylogeny in question with accuracies approaching 100%.However,real phylogenies are rarely inferred under ideal circumstances.Explain,using examples,why this is so.

Two closely related species that share a recent common ancestor are called ________ species.

Biogeographers study the spatial distribution of living things,and how they came to be where they are.Explain,using examples,how phylogeography can be used to answer the questions of biogeographers.

A novel,derived character is also referred to as a(n)________.

In the case study involving the phylogeny of whales,________.

Analysis of neutral mutation rates to answer interesting questions such as "When did humans begin to wear clothes?" relies on the ________ [two words] hypothesis,which states that molecular traits change at a steady rate.

Evaluate the merits and limits of parsimony,maximum likelihood,and Bayesian inference as tools for evaluating alternative phylogenies.

Convergence and reversal are two complications that can interfere with accurate reconstruction of phylogenies.Describe each one,using examples,and explain the common strategies used to overcome them.

A derived character that is shared among two or more lineages is also called a(n)________.

The wings of bats and birds and the streamlined body form of sharks and whales represent examples of ________.

In determining the evolutionary relationships of current species,one needs to ________.

In the accompanying figure,the three "dashes" in the fourth row of nucleotides represent a(n)________ that was corrected for in this example of molecular data analysis.

An ancestor and all of its descendants are known as a monophyletic group or a(n)________.

The illustration in the accompanying figure represents an early phylogenetic tree as depicted by ________.

A ________ [two words] is the evolutionary history of an ancestral lineage and its descendants.