Question
Question: How do phylogenetic trees depict time and ancestry?...
How do phylogenetic trees depict time and ancestry?
Solution
Phylogenetic trees reflect how species or other groups evolved from a series of common ancestors. It helps in knowing and understanding the similarities and differences between various organisms along with their line of descendants.
Complete answer:
A phylogeny is a group of the evolutionary history of genetically similar organisms composed of ancestor species and descendant species. Evolutionary relationships indicate which ancestors give rise to which descendants.-A Phylogenetic tree is a diagram of a tree that usually represents a phylogeny or relationships of the ancestors of the organisms.
-The example of the phylogenetic tree is the "Darwin's Tree of Life" where he tried to show the process of evolution that occurred. The pattern of species evolved is shown by the branches that arise from the bottom to the top of the tree. As new species evolve through the process of evolution the new branches arise at the top (tip) while the older ones will be at the bottom (root). If the descendants are not there then the species will become extinct.
The pattern of the phylogenetic tree shows the common ancestry as it is of different shapes and styles. The tree consists of different branches which then divide to form various sub-groups while their common point of origin shows their common ancestry. If the tree consists of many branches then it shows that the lineage is longer and much older. It is observed that those trees that have common characters then are recent ones while those that have distinct features than they are older ones, thus it can depict the time and ancestry of both.
Note:
Cladistics is the most common method of incorporating information into phylogenetic trees. It was developed by Wili Hennig in 1950, it is a very popular type of phylogenetic tree that is even widely used today. The word Cladogram is derived from the term clade. In Earth's history, the ‘calendar’ of the events can be observed through the geological time scale. It is the list or arrangement of various events of geology in layers according to the time.