Cladistics & Homology

• What does it mean when we say a cladogram depicts a“hypothesis of genealogical relationships between taxa”?

• What part of the “anatomy” of a cladogram represents ahistorical speciation event?

• Define synapomorphy and plesiomorphy. How can one character beboth?

• What kind of characters are useful in building acladogram?

• Why are characters found in only one taxon not informative inphylogeny reconstruction?

• What is the difference between a monophyletic, polyphyleticand paraphyletic group?

Which of these ps is/are “accepted” in cladistics?

• Define homology

• Why is homology considered the central concept of comparativebiology?

• What is the relationship between synapomorphy, homology, andmonophyly?

• What is one similarity and one difference between traditionalhomology and serial homology?

• What is the term for similarity due to convergentevolution?

• If presented with two taxa that have a similar structure, whatevidence would you look for to determine if those structures werehomologous?

• Given a cladogram, could you determine which taxa were moreclosely related?

• Given multiple cladograms, could you determine which depictedequivalent hypotheses of relationships?

• What is the principle of maximum parsimony, and how would youdetermine which of two cladograms was more parsimonious?

• Why is it incorrect to refer to any living taxon as beingprimitive? What does “basal” mean in terms of phylogenies?