15. Phylogeny and Systematics
Principles of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (EEB 122)
The Tree of Life must be discovered through rigorous analysis. Genetic information is crucial because appearances can be deceiving, and species that look similar can prove to be genetically very dissimilar and not share recent common ancestors. Two criteria, used to determine what the "correct" Tree is, are simplicity and whether the tree maximizes the probability of observing what we actually see.
00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction
04:30 - Chapter 2. Grouping by Common Ancestry
15:11 - Chapter 3. Misleading Analogies
24:43 - Chapter 4. The Process of Phylogenetic Grouping
35:04 - Chapter 5. The Logic of Grouping by Shared Characteristics
42:56 - Chapter 6. Summary
Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses
This course was recorded in Spring 2009.