Question

what kind of things can be learned when looking at phylogenetic trees?

Answer 1

Phylogenetic tree is also known as the evolutionary tree.

We can learn about the evolutionary relationships among the species from their ancestors.

We have tips and nodes in the phylogenetic tree. The tips are usually the species known as taxa that represent the descendents that evolved from the ancestors whereas, nodes represent the common ancestors of those descendents.

We have sister groups in the descendents. The descendents that evolved and split from the same ancestor and same node are known as the sister groups. This means these two species are close relatives of each other. We also have an outgroup that is a descendent that directly stems from the ancestor that is at the base of the tree and this outgroup is not closely related to other species.

It is of two types: Rooted and Unrooted

Rooted Phylogenetic tree is something which shows the evolution of a descendent right from the oldest ancestor known as the root of the tree and represents upto the branches, stems and leaves of the phylogenitic tree also the relationship between those descendents from the root ancestor.

Unrooted Phylogenetic tree does not account for the ancestor the descendent this type of phylogenetic tree just accounts for the relatedness of the species without taking the ancestor into consideration,

From rooted phylogenetic tree we can know what is the ancestor of those particular descendents and through unrooted phylogenetic tree we cannot depict the common ancestor of the descendents.

These are things we can learn from the phylogenetic trees.