Morphological and Molecular Methods for Creating Phylogenetic Trees

 

Daniel Johnson

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2005, Volume 26

Abstract

In modern systematics, both morphological features and DNA or amino acid sequences are used to determine phylogenetic relationships. This two-week exercise demonstrates two methods used by systematists to create phylogenetic trees. In the first week students score morphological features of fictional and real organisms, create data matrices showing number of synapomorphies, and then use the matrices to draw phylogenetic trees. In the second week they use Bio Workbench, an online bioinformatics software package, to create phylogenetic trees based on nucleotide or amino acid sequences. Students learn how modern systematics helps answer questions about ecology, evolution, and behavior.

Keywords:  phylogenetic classification, morphology, systematics, phylogenetic analysis, cladistics, phylogenetic relationships, clade, synapomorphy, parsimony

Bowling Green State University, Ohio (2004)