What Is Phylogenetic Systematics?
Carolus Linnaeus was also credited with pioneering systematics, the field of science dealing with the diversity of life and the relationship between life’s components. Systematics reaches beyond taxonomy to elucidate new methods and theories that can be used to classify species based on similarity of traits and possible mechanisms of evolution, a change in the gene pool of a population over time. Phylogenetic systematics is that field of biology that does deal with identifying and understanding the evolutionary relationships among the many different kinds of life on earth, both living (extant) and dead (extinct). Evolutionary theory states that similarity among individuals or species is attributable to common descent, or inheritance from a common ancestor. Thus, the relationships established by phylogenetic systematics often describe a species’ evolutionary history and, hence, its phylogeny, the historical relationships among lineages or organisms or their parts, such as their genes.
