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| The evolutionary history of a species or group of species. |
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| An analytical approach to understanding the diversity and relationships of organisms, both present-day and extinct. |
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| A form of systematics that utilizes comparisons of DNA, RNA and other molecules to infer evolutionary relationships between individual genes or entire genomes. |
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| A paleontological history derived from the sequence in which remnants have been deposited in sedimentary rock. |
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| Similarity due to convergent evolution, rather than shared ancestry - such as the similarity in appearance of Australian burrowing moles, despite uncommon ancestry. |
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| A term that describes analogous structures that have evolved independently. Can also be used to describe coincidental DNA similarities. |
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| A branch of biology that deals with the naming and classification of organisms. |
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| The two-word format for scientific naming. The first word is capitalized and the whole name is italicized. Example: "Panthera Pardus", the scientific name for the leopard. |
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| The first part of a species' name. Species are a direct subset of this. |
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| The second part of a species' scientific name. It is unique for each species in a genus. |
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| The lowest level of classification in taxonomy. |
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| Species, Genus, Family, Order, Class, Phylum, Kingdom, Domain. |
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| The order, in increasing scope, of classification of organisms. |
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| A branching diagram that depicts a hypothesis about evolutionary relationships. |
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| A diagram that shows patterns of shared characteristics along a line. |
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| A branch of a phylogenetic tree that includes a common ancestor and all its descendants. |
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| The analysis of how species may be grouped into clades. |
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| A valid clade, that consists of the ancestral species and all its descendants. |
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| An invalid clade, that consists of an ancestral species and some but not all of its descendants. |
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| An invalid clade that consists of several species that lack a common ancestor. Such a situation calls for further reconstruction of a cladogram. |
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| Shared Primitive Character |
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| A trait that is shared beyond the taxon that is being defined. |
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| An evolutionary novelty unique to a particular clade. |
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| A species or group of species that is closely related to the ingroup. |
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| Various species under study in a cladogram. The species must be more closely related than those of the outgroup. |
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| A presentation of information about the sequence of events in an evolutionary history relative to one another. |
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| A chronological account of an evolutionary history which details specific dates of evolutionary divergence. |
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| A principle which dictates that the simplest explanation that is consistent with the facts should be investigated first. Also known as "Occam's Razor" because it shears away unnecessary complications. |
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| A principle which states that, given certain rules about how DNA changes over time, a tree can be found that reflects the most likely sequence of evolutionary events. |
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| Homologous genes that are passed in a straight line from one generation to the next but have ended up in different gene pools because of speciation. An example is the Beta Hemoglobin genes in humans in mice. |
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| Genes that result from gene duplication, and so are found in more than one copy in the same genome. An example is that of the olfactory receptor genes, which have duplicated in humans and mice to the point that more than 1,000 of them can be found in a genome. |
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| A yardstick for measuring the absolute time of evolutionary change based on the observation that some genes and other regions of genomes appear to evolve at constant rates. |
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| The theory that much evolutionary change in genes and proteins has no effect upon fitness and therefore is not influence by Darwinian selection. As a result of this, the theory is that the rate of molecular change should be regular like a clock. |
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| Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya |
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Definition
| The three domains of life according to the Universal Tree of Life. |
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| A process in which genes are transferred from one genome to another through mechanisms such as transposable elements - small, mobile genetic elements that move about a genome - and perhaps through fusions of different organisms. Eukarya may have been produced from a fusion of a bacterium and an archaean. |
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