Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / November 13, 2021
By Florencia Ucha, in Jan. 2015
Phylogeny is a field that within the biology is exclusively dedicated to studying and knowing the origin, where they come from, and the development of various species that populate our planet, and also does the same with the genealogies of beings alive.
The starting point to know the phylogeny of the organisms is to establish their coincidences on issues such as DNA, the morphology, the embryology, DNA molecules, among others. Of course, if any of them give a positive result then we can talk about relationship genetics and evolutionary resemblance.
There are organisms that are in close relationship with others in evolutionary matters because, for example, they can share a common ancestry, and it is precisely this question that the phylogeny or phylogenetics, as it is also called.
Now, to carry out this relational study is that the matrix of DNA molecules is used. From this data can be elaborated phylogenetic trees.
In the work of the naturalist Charles Darwin
, The origin of species, dating from the mid-nineteenth century, this tree appears for the first time drawn, which tells us so much about the evolution of living organisms.Meanwhile, these mentioned genetic trees constitute the bases on which the classification phylogenetics, which is a type of scientific classification that uniquely considers the evolutionarily close relationships between the species that inhabit our planet. It also reconstructs the history of how they diversified, from when they first appeared on earth to present times.
For example, this information, in addition to being vital when it comes to knowing a species, knowing why it has such or such characteristics, is super enriching because It also allows us to know for sure which species come from others, the untimely disappearances of some, their mutations, among others. issues.
Darwin was undoubtedly a pioneer and to whom we owe in great measure the desire to discover the evolutionary history of species. His proposal called as natural selection it was the one that best explained biological evolution. According to his theories the conditions of a environment they will be key when it comes to favoring or hindering the development of a species.
Topics in Phylogeny