Intro to Cladograms and Phylogenetic Trees

Join the Amoeba Sisters as they introduce the basics about cladograms and phylogenetic trees. The Amoeba Sisters walk through the process of building a basic cladogram and mention vocabulary such as: shared ancestral character, shared derived character, clade, and outgroup.

Table of Contents:
00:00 Intro
1:07 Cladogram Intro
1:19 Building a Cladogram
5:05 Important Cladogram Features
6:00 Cladogram Misconceptions
8:11 Different Arrangements of Cladograms
8:37 Phylogenetic Tree vs Cladogram
9:12 Why Cladograms Matter

FACTUAL REFERENCES:

Freeman, Scott, and Jon C Herron. Evolutionary Analysis. 5th ed., Upper Saddle River, Nj, Prentice Hall, 2014.

Urry, Lisa A, et al. Campbell Biology. 11th ed., New York, Ny, Pearson Education, Inc, 2017.

Zedalis, Julianne, and John Eggebrecht. “20.2 Determining Evolutionary Relationships - Biology for AP® Courses | OpenStax.” Openstax.org, 8 Mar. 2018, https://openstax.org/books/biology-ap...

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FURTHER READING:

🫁 *More about lungs:
-in frogs and other amphibians: https://openstax.org/books/biology-2e...
-in mammals:
https://openstax.org/books/biology-2e...

🧬 Learn about convergent evolution (and how that could affect a cladogram) from Berkeley:
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/simila...

We mention we are using homologous structures and that you can learn more about that in our evolution video. ▶️    • Evolution  
The term "homologous" is important because - when building a cladogram - you would NOT want to select an analogous structure (the example image of a butterfly wing and bird wing in convergent evolution). Learn more about that from Berkeley: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/simila...

👁️ Loss of traits? Some organisms lose ancestral traits. How can this happen? An interesting read: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/an...

*Note: We mention we've observed "phylogenetic tree" and "cladogram" used interchangeably, but some sources consider phylogenetic trees to be more specific (branches representing time scale and more detail). There's a summary box from Berkeley here that mentions these terms as well as others, and gives more insight:
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/phylog...

***Three interesting scenarios showing why understanding cladograms and phylogenetic trees can be very important***
(1) and (2) Scroll down to the "Why Does Phylogeny Matter" box from OpenStax here that mentions understanding disease transmission and conservation: https://openstax.org/books/concepts-b...
(3) Scroll down to the "Why Does Phylogeny Matter" box from OpenStax AP Biology here that mentions the importance of phylogeny when identifying medicinal plants
https://openstax.org/books/biology-ap...

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