Question

Which of these statements is NOT a characteristic of the cladistics system?

It shows the "rank" of the organism.

It shows the probable sequence of origins.

It shows shared, derived characteristics.

Answer 1

what do you think?

Answer 2

welcome to openstudy :D

Answer 3

@saron97 I am just going to give the correct answer and explain why. I do this because defining "cladistics" is often very confusing to people. This is because it is so similar, and in a way part of, phylogenetics. Both generate tree like results, both are meant to group species, and both use similar methods.

However, there is a fundamental difference. "Cladistics" use characters to group closely related species together. This implies a statement about the evolutionary history of the species, but this is not required. Phylogenetics on the other hand are methods used to identify closely related species and the history of relationships among them. The goal of phylogenetics is to find this evolutionary history.

That is the key difference. Cladistics imply the evolutionary history and phylogenetics are used to infer the evolutionary history.

Answer 4

Thanks :)