Morphological and Molecular Methods for Creating Phylogenetic Trees
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- Author:
- Daniel Johnson
- Subject:
- Science and Technology
- Institution Name:
- Wake Forest University
- Collection:
- Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE)
- Grade Level:
- Post-secondary
- Abstract:
In modern systematics, both morphological features and DNA or amino acid sequences are used to determine phylogenetic relationships. This two-week exercise demonstrates two methods used by systematists to create phylogenetic trees. In the first week students score morphological features of fictional and real organisms, create data matrices showing number of synapomorphies, and then use the matrices to draw phylogenetic trees. In the second week they use Bio Workbench, an online bioinformatics software package, to create phylogenetic trees based on nucleotide or amino acid sequences. Students learn how modern systematics helps answer questions about ecology, evolution, and behavior.
- Course Type:
- Learning Module
- Languages:
- English
- Material Type:
- Activities and Labs, Lesson Plans
- Media Format:
- Downloadable docs
- Conditions of Use:
-
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Use solely at one's own institution with no intent for profit is excluded from the preceding copyright restriction, unless otherwise noted on the copyright notice of the individual chapter in this volume. Proper credit to this publication must be included in your laboratory outline for each use; a sample citation is given [on the copyright page of each volume]. Upon obtaining permission or with the "sole use at one's own institution" exclusion, ABLE strongly encourages individuals to use the exercises in this proceedings volume in their teaching program.
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