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| 2151462522 | Phylogeny | The evolutionary history of a species or group of related species. | 0 | |
| 2151464213 | systematic | a scientific discipline focused on classification of organisms and determining their evolutionary relationship. | 1 | |
| 577823850 | taxonomy | a scientific discipline concerned with naming and classifying the diverse forms of life. | 2 | |
| 577823851 | binomial | a common term for the two-part, latinized format for naming a species, consisting of the genus and specific epithet; also called a binomen. | 3 | |
| 577823852 | genus | a taxonomic category above the specie level, designated by the first word of a species' two part scientific name. | 4 | |
| 577823853 | family | in Linnaean classification, the taxonomic category above the level of genus. | 5 | |
| 577823854 | orders | the taxonomic classification above the level of family. | 6 | |
| 577823855 | classes | in Linnaean classification, the taxonomic category above the level of order. | 7 | |
| 577823856 | phyla | In the Linnaean classification, the taxonomic category above the level of class. | 8 | |
| 577823857 | kingdoms | a taxonomic category, the second broadest after domain. | 9 | |
| 577823858 | domains | the taxonomic category level above the kingdom level. The three domains are Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya. | 10 | |
| 577823859 | taxon | a naming taxonomic unit at any given level of classification. | 11 | |
| 577823860 | phylogenetic tree | a branching diagram that represents a hypothesis about the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. | 12 | |
| 577823861 | branch points | the representation of a phylogenetic tree of the divergence of two or more taxa from a common ancestor. A branch point is usually shown as a dichotomy in which a branch representing the ancestral lineage splits (at the branch point) into two branches, one for each of the two descendant lineages. | 13 | |
| 577823862 | sister taxa | group of organisms that share a common ancestor and hence are each other closest relative. | 14 | |
| 577823863 | rooted | describing a phylogenetic tree that contains a branch point (often the farthest to the left) representing the most common ancestor of all the taxa in the tree. | 15 | |
| 577823864 | basal taxon | in a specific group of organisms, a taxon whose evolutionary lineage diverged early in the history of the group. | 16 | |
| 577823865 | polytomy | in the phylogenetic tree, a branch point from which more than two descendants taxa emerge. A polytomy indicates the evolutionary relationship between the descendants taxa are not yet clear. | 17 | |
| 577823866 | analogy | similarities between two species that is due to convergent evolution rather than to descent from a common ancestor with the same trait. | 18 | |
| 577823867 | homoplasies | a similar (analogous) structure or molecular sequence that has evolved independently in two species. | 19 | |
| 577823868 | cladistics | an approach to systematics in which organisms are placed into groups called clades based primarily on common descent. | 20 | |
| 577823869 | clades | a group of species that includes an ancestral species and all of its descendants. A clade is equivalent to a monophyletic group. | 21 | |
| 577823870 | monophyletic | pertaining to a group of taxa that consists of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. A monophyletic taxon is equivalent to a clade. | 22 | |
| 577823871 | paraphyletic | pertaining to a group of taxa that consists of a common ancestor and some, but not all, of its descendants. | 23 | |
| 577823872 | polyphyletic | pertaining to a group of taxa that includes distantly related organisms but does not include their most recent ancestor. | 24 | |
| 577823873 | shared ancestral character | a character, shared by members of a particular clade, that originated in an ancestor that is not a member of that clade. | 25 | |
| 577823874 | shared derived character | an evolutionary novelty that is unique to a particular clade. | 26 | |
| 577823875 | outgroup | a species or group of species from an evolutionary lineage that is known to have diverged before the lineage that contains the group of species being studied. An outgroup is selected so that its members are closely related to the group of species being studied, but not as closely related as any study- group members are to each other. | 27 | |
| 577823876 | ingroup | a specie or group of species whose evolutionary relationships are being examined in a given analysis. | 28 | |
| 577823877 | maximum parsimony | a principle that states when considering multiple explanations for an observation, one should first investigate the simplest explanation that is consistent with the facts. | 29 | |
| 577823878 | maximum likelihood | as applied to DNA sequence data, a principle that states that when considering multiple phylogenteic hypotheses, one should take into account the hypothesis that reflect the most likely sequence of evolutionary events, given certain rules about how DNA changes over time. | 30 | |
| 577823879 | orthologous genes | homologous genes found in different species because of speciation. | 31 | |
| 577823880 | paralogous genes | homologous genes that are found in the same genome as a result of gene duplication. | 32 | |
| 577823881 | molecular clock | a method of estimating the time required for a given amount of evolutionary change, based on the observation that some regions of genomes evolve at a constant rate. | 33 | |
| 577823882 | horizontal gene transfer | the transfer of genes from one genome to another through mechanisms such as transposable elements, plasmid exchange, viral activity, and perhaps fusions of different organisms. | 34 |
