In: Biology
In biology, phylogenetics is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among individuals or groups of organisms (e.g. species, or populations). A phylogenetic signal is a measure of the statistical dependence among species' trait values due to their phylogenetic relationships. To understand the evolution of morphological traits, testing for phylogenetic dependence is a first and unavoidable step. It is very important to study the evolutionary relationship between a life trait and the phylogeny.