Phylogenetics is a relatively young and rapidly growing subdiscipline of the much older and larger discipline known as systematics. There are three complementary subdisciplines within systematics: taxonomy, classification, and phylogenetics. While taxonomy is used to describe the Earth’s biodiversity through identifying “kinds” and placing like kinds into definable groups, based on variation (usually termed species), and classification is used to arrange these species into a hierarchical scheme of relationships (class, order, family, etc.), phylogenetics is often used to unite both taxonomy and classification by organizing the accumulated data from each species into groups representing a broader biological context. This context is usually one of evolutionary significance. One of the main purposes of phylogenetics is to unite related organisms into a natural or monophyletic group. A monophyletic group is an assemblage of organisms that includes a common ancestor and all of its...
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Bybee, S. (2008). Phylogenetics. In: Capinera, J.L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Entomology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6359-6_2935
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