Chapter 12: Diversity of Life

1. What is a phylogeny and how does it relate to a phylogenetic tree?
2. In terms of phylogenies, why are fossils so incredibly valuable?
3. In a phylogenetic tree, be able to identify the following and what they represent: branch, node, terminal node.
4. How do the two approaches of estimating phylogenies differ: the phenetic approach vs. the cladistics approach?
5. What is a synapomorphy?
6. What is a clade?
7. What principle of logic is phylogenetics based?
8. What assumption does phylogenetic parsimony make?
9. Parsimony suggests that the best phylogenetic tree _____.
10. Which phylogenetic approach is primarily based on synapomorphies?
11. Which phylogenetic approach is primarily based on computed statistics, typically from DNA?
12. What is the difference between homology and homoplasy?
13. What is the underlying cause of homology?
14. What is convergent evolution? Give an example.
15. How do you know two species have evolved convergently?
16. What is the underlying cause of homoplasy?
17. What does the story of whale evolution teach us about parsimony?
18. What are fossils? How did they form?
19. What kind of organisms are most likely to be fossilized?
20. What kind of organisms are least likely to be fossilized?
21. What the difference between: intact fossils, compression fossils, cast fossils, and permineralized fossils?
22. Explain the following limitations of the fossil record: habitat bias, taxonomic bias, temporal bias, and abundance bias.