Example of Cladograms
- Evolutionary relationships between species can be represented visually using a diagram called a cladogram
- Cladograms are evolutionary trees that show probable order of divergence from ancestral species and therefore probable relationships between species
- Analysis of a cladogram can provide several pieces of information
- The point at which two branches separate is known as a node, and represents common ancestor species
- A node immediately adjacent to a pair of clades indicates that these two clades share a recent common ancestor
- This shows that the two clades are more closely related to each other than they are to any other clade in the cladogram
- If several nodes need to be traced back before two clades can be joined, this indicates a more distant relationship between two clades
Cladogram Example
A cladogram with notes to indicate some of the conclusions that can be drawn from it. A cladogram like this one contains no numbers or time scale, so it does not show the number of base or amino acid changes that have occurred between one node and the next, or how much time has passed between nodes