Anyone outside of UT Martin wishing to use these notes or to contact me for additional information should first read the information obtained by clicking here . The goals of this lecture are to introduce the concept and tree representation of phylogeny. The material in this section also provides the basic background necessary for conducting your second outside assignment, on phylogenetic analysis of toucans.
Phylogeny refers to the evolutionary relationships among species.
The following paragraph illustrates what this means. Species have evolved through speciation which refers to the process through which one species becomes divided into more than one new species. We can think of all species as being part of a family tree which traces back to the ancestor to all life. The result is the great diversity of life currently present on earth. So the pattern of evolutionary relationships, or history of speciation, among species is what we call their phylogeny.