Chapter 21, Problem 3CCQ

Summary Introduction

To analyze:

Possible advantages & pitfalls of using morphological characters to construct phylogenetic trees

Introduction:

Phylogenetic tree is a diagrammatic representation about evolutionary trends of different organisms. This is a hypothetical concept. For the construction of a phylogenetic tree proper understanding on ancestors & descendants of species is required. To obtain this information examining of morphological characters can be used.

Morphological features include aspects of the external appearance such as shape, structure, color, pattern & size. So in the morphological analysis concentrate on observing & recording these features to differentiate between organisms. After doing a deep morphological analysis biologists can get an idea about 2 species relatedness. Using this data phylogenetic tree can be constructed.