Association for Biology Laboratory Education

Phylogenetic Systematics: Developing an Hypothesis of Amniote Relationships
 

Daniel R. Brooks, Deborah A. McLennan, Joseph P. Carney, Michael D. Dennison, and Corey A. Goldman

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 1994, Volume 15

Abstract

Biodiversity studies begin with patterns of evolutionary diversification, made possible by phylogenetic systematics. Phylogenetics clusters species into groups depicting their common ancestry based on shared derived characters unique to that group. It is quantifiable, reproducible, and scientifically testable, and has three assumptions: evolution has occurred, there is a single phylogeny of life resulting from evolutionary diversification, and characteristics are passed from generation to generation, modified or unmodified, during evolutionary descent. This exercise acquaints students with the terminology and methodology of phylogenetics, and permits them to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships among major amniote groups using characteristics they observe themselves.

Keywords:  phylogenetic analysis, cladistics, phylogenetic relationships

University of Toronto (1993)