Bio1151
Chapter
26
Phylogeny and The Tree of Life
is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships of
organisms,
based on shared
characters inherited from a common
.
What are the evolutionary relationships among a human, a mushroom, and a tulip? Despite appearances, molecular evidence has revealed that animals, including humans, and fungi, such as mushrooms, are more closely related to each other than either are to plants.
Carolus
Linnaeus
introduced a system of
, for classifying species in seven
hierarchical
categories (taxa).
Carolus Linnaeus published his Systema Naturae in 1758. This was the first scientific approach to classifying organisms.
Traditional taxonomy uses a hierarchical classification where species are placed into groups belonging to more comprehensive groups (taxa). Starting from the most comprehensive taxon, Linnaeus classified organisms into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Leopards and humans both belong to kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, but while leopards are in order Carnivora, humans are in order Primates. A taxon above kingdom called domain was added after Linnaeus proposed these 7 levels.
Each group in this hierarchy of organisms is a clade (taxon) with shared derived characters. For example, animals in order Carnivora posses carnassials : the last upper premolars and the first lower molars adapted for shearing food a scissor-like manner. 01_14ClassifyingLife_L.jpg-->
Phylogenetic
relationships
are shown as branching trees where each
branch
point represents the
of two
when they shared a common
(homology).
The scientific name of an organism uses a binomial nomenclature composed of its genus and specific epithet. Thus genus Panthera and specific epithet pardus uniquely identifies the leopard (Panthera pardus), and humans are Homo sapiens. The cat family, Felidae, is a sister taxon with other families in the order Carnivora, which is a branch of class Mammalia.
The scientific name for humans is Homo sapiens (kingdom Animalia). The genus is Homo, while the specific epithet is sapiens. ../ch24/24_02bBioSpeciesConceptB-U.jpg-->
Each group in this hierarchy of organisms is a clade (taxon) with shared derived characters. For example, animals in order Carnivora posses carnassials : the last upper premolars and the first lower molars adapted for shearing food a scissor-like manner. 01_14ClassifyingLife_L.jpg-->
A phylogenetic tree shows evolutionary relationships by homology. A homology is a shared derived character, such as hair among the mammals, inherited from a common ancestor.
similarity can be misleading due to
evolution
(analogy).
Similar environmental pressures and natural selection can produce similar (analogous) adaptations in organisms from different evolutionary lineages: convergent evolution An elongated body, large front paws, small eyes, thicken skin, and a tapered nose all evolved independently in the marsupial Australian mole and eutherian North American mole.
Convergent evolution. The sugar glider is a marsupial mammal (young finish development in a pouch) that evolved in Australia. While sugar gliders superficially resemble the eutherian flying squirrels of North America, the ability to glide through the air evolved independently in these 2 distantly related mammals. 22_17ConvergentEvolution.jpg-->
homologies that make use of computer programs to analyze
segments
can reveal many relationships not attainable by other methods.
Identifying homologous DNA.
Ancestral DNA segments from 2 species are identical.
Deletion and insertion mutations shift these sequences as the 2 species diverge.
Homologous regions no longer align.
Homologous regions realign after a computer program adds gaps in sequence 1.
Shared ancestry and shared
characters
are drawn on a
to show evolutionary
relationships;
this practice is called
.
A character table can show shared derived characters inherited among organisms. A 0 indicates a character is absent; a 1 indicates that it is present. The shared derived characters can be arranged to track descent from a common ancestor.
A cladogram is used to track relationships by shared derived characters inherited from a common ancestor. Clades are defined by an evolutionary novelty at the branching point, which constitues a shared derived character (homology) for the clade (ingroup). An outgroup does not possess that character.
A clade must be
, and consists of the
species and all its
descendants;
paraphyletic
and
polyphyletic
groups do not qualify as legitimate clades.
Monophyletic. Group I (species A, B, C) is a monophyletic group, or clade, made up of an ancestral species (X) and all of its descendant species.
Paraphyletic. Group II is paraphyletic: it consists of an ancestor (X) and some (D, E, F), but not all (excludes G), of that ancestors descendants.
Polyphyletic. Group III is polyphyletic: it lacks a common ancestor of all the species in the group.
The tree of
life
is divided into three great clades called
:
(Monera),
, and
.
The tree of life. Based on rRNA gene sequences, living organisms are divided into 3 domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. Eukarya and Archaea appear to share a common ancestor, are more closely related to each other than to Bacteria. Note: Archaea and Bacteria are "prokaryotes" that lack organelles such as a nucleus. The lack of organelles is not a shared derived character, thus "prokaryotes" do not constitute a clade.