Biology › Section J · Evolution › Topic J.8
Determining evolutionary relationships
Looks can deceive: similar organisms may be unrelated, and close relatives can look nothing alike. Biologists sort traits into homologous and analogous, then build clades.
In this topic
- The problem of resemblance
- Homologous structures
- Analogous structures and convergence
- Vestigial structures
- Molecular evidence
- Worked example: Building a cladogram from traits
- Worked example: Placing a species by its DNA
- Cladistics and clades
- Shared ancestral and derived characters
- Why phylogeny matters
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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