Cladistics: A Practical Primer on CD-ROM

About this book

CD-ROM providing a complete self-study introductory course in plylogenetic reconstruction using cladistic analysis. The CD is fully interactive and includes animated sequences, questions at the end of each section, and practical exercises.

Contents

Introduction

Part I. First Principles:
1.1 Reconstructing evolutionary history from observed differences
1.2 Parsimony and tree construction

Part II. Characters and Homology:
2.1 Homology and homoplasy
2.2 Homology in molecular data
2.3 Character definition
2.4 Weighting

Part III. Cladograms and Trees:
3.1 Rooting procedures and character polarity
3.2 Cladograms, phylograms, and phylogenetic trees
3.3 Monophyly, paraphyly, and polyphyly
3.4 Consensus trees

Part IV. Fit and Robustness:
4.1 Measuring goodness of fit
4.2 Tests of robustness

Part V. Practical Exercise:
5.1 Phylogenetic analysis of eight species of sea-urchins
5.2 Cladistic analysis of morphological characters
5.3 Cladistic analysis of molecular characters
5.4 Comparison of results and conclusions

Customer Reviews

Biography

Peter Skelton is a senior lecturer in Earth Sciences at the Open University, UK. Andrew Smith is a Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum Palaeontology Department in London, UK. Neale Monks is a researcher in paleontology and a science writer. He wrote the booklet that accompanies this CD-ROM.