21-433: Ardeae Phaethoquornithes is a clade of birds that contains Eurypygimorphae and Aequornithes , which was first recovered by genome analysis in 2014. Members of Eurypygimorphae were originally classified in the obsolete group Metaves , and Aequornithes were classified as the sister taxon to Musophagiformes or Gruiformes . This group has also been informally called Ardeae . Older classifications have used Ardeae in
42-593: A clade – that is, a grouping of taxa which meets these criteria: Monophyly is contrasted with paraphyly and polyphyly as shown in the second diagram. A paraphyletic grouping meets 1. but not 2., thus consisting of the descendants of a common ancestor, excepting one or more monophyletic subgroups. A polyphyletic grouping meets neither criterion, and instead serves to characterize convergent relationships of biological features rather than genetic relationships – for example, night-active primates, fruit trees, or aquatic insects. As such, these characteristic features of
63-479: A "ladder", with supposedly more "advanced" organisms at the top. Taxonomists have increasingly worked to make the taxonomic system reflect evolution. When it comes to naming , this principle is not always compatible with the traditional rank-based nomenclature (in which only taxa associated with a rank can be named) because not enough ranks exist to name a long series of nested clades. For these and other reasons, phylogenetic nomenclature has been developed; it
84-623: A clade can be described based on two different reference points, crown age and stem age. The crown age of a clade refers to the age of the most recent common ancestor of all of the species in the clade. The stem age of a clade refers to the time that the ancestral lineage of the clade diverged from its sister clade. A clade's stem age is either the same as or older than its crown age. Ages of clades cannot be directly observed. They are inferred, either from stratigraphy of fossils , or from molecular clock estimates. Viruses , and particularly RNA viruses form clades. These are useful in tracking
105-992: A different sense, as a suborder of Ciconiiformes containing herons and related species. George Sangster and colleagues in 2022 named and defined this clade in the PhyloCode as the least inclusive crown clade containing Phaethon aethereus and Pelecanus onocrotalus , but not Apus apus , Charadrius hiaticula , Musophaga violacea , or Passer domesticus . Phaethontiformes (tropicbirds) [REDACTED] Eurypygiformes ( sunbittern and kagu ) [REDACTED] Gaviiformes ( loons ) Procellariiformes ( albatrosses and petrels ) [REDACTED] Sphenisciformes (penguins) [REDACTED] Ciconiiformes (storks) [REDACTED] Suliformes ( boobies , cormorants , etc.) Pelecaniformes ( pelicans , herons & ibises ) [REDACTED] Cladogram based on Kuhl et al . (2020), with clade names following Sangster et al (2022). This bird-related article
126-461: A polyphyletic grouping are not inherited from a common ancestor, but evolved independently. Monophyletic groups are typically characterised by shared derived characteristics ( synapomorphies ), which distinguish organisms in the clade from other organisms. An equivalent term is holophyly . The word "mono-phyly" means "one-tribe" in Greek. These definitions have taken some time to be accepted. When
147-422: A revised taxonomy based on a concept strongly resembling clades, although the term clade itself would not be coined until 1957 by his grandson, Julian Huxley . German biologist Emil Hans Willi Hennig (1913–1976) is considered to be the founder of cladistics . He proposed a classification system that represented repeated branchings of the family tree, as opposed to the previous systems, which put organisms on
168-429: A suffix added should be e.g. "dracohortian". A clade is by definition monophyletic , meaning that it contains one ancestor which can be an organism, a population, or a species and all its descendants. The ancestor can be known or unknown; any and all members of a clade can be extant or extinct. The science that tries to reconstruct phylogenetic trees and thus discover clades is called phylogenetics or cladistics ,
189-438: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Clade In biological phylogenetics , a clade (from Ancient Greek κλάδος (kládos) 'branch'), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group , is a grouping of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree . In the taxonomical literature, sometimes
210-499: Is also used with a similar meaning in other fields besides biology, such as historical linguistics ; see Cladistics § In disciplines other than biology . The term "clade" was coined in 1957 by the biologist Julian Huxley to refer to the result of cladogenesis , the evolutionary splitting of a parent species into two distinct species, a concept Huxley borrowed from Bernhard Rensch . Many commonly named groups – rodents and insects , for example – are clades because, in each case,
231-476: Is in turn included in the mammal, vertebrate and animal clades. The idea of a clade did not exist in pre- Darwinian Linnaean taxonomy , which was based by necessity only on internal or external morphological similarities between organisms. Many of the better known animal groups in Linnaeus's original Systema Naturae (mostly vertebrate groups) do represent clades. The phenomenon of convergent evolution
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#1732771896768252-515: Is responsible for many cases of misleading similarities in the morphology of groups that evolved from different lineages. With the increasing realization in the first half of the 19th century that species had changed and split through the ages, classification increasingly came to be seen as branches on the evolutionary tree of life . The publication of Darwin's theory of evolution in 1859 gave this view increasing weight. In 1876 Thomas Henry Huxley , an early advocate of evolutionary theory, proposed
273-489: Is still controversial. As an example, see the full current classification of Anas platyrhynchos (the mallard duck) with 40 clades from Eukaryota down by following this Wikispecies link and clicking on "Expand". The name of a clade is conventionally a plural, where the singular refers to each member individually. A unique exception is the reptile clade Dracohors , which was made by haplology from Latin "draco" and "cohors", i.e. "the dragon cohort "; its form with
294-650: The Latin form cladus (plural cladi ) is used rather than the English form. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics , a modern approach to taxonomy adopted by most biological fields. The common ancestor may be an individual, a population , or a species ( extinct or extant ). Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently. Clades are termed monophyletic (Greek: "one clan") groups. Over
315-404: The cladistics school of thought became mainstream in the 1960s, several alternative definitions were in use. Indeed, taxonomists sometimes used terms without defining them, leading to confusion in the early literature, a confusion which persists. The first diagram shows a phylogenetic tree with two monophyletic groups. The several groups and subgroups are particularly situated as branches of
336-413: The fact that a monophyletic group includes organisms (e.g., genera, species) consisting of all the descendants of a unique common ancestor. Conversely, the term polyphyly , or polyphyletic , builds on the ancient Greek prefix πολύς ( polús ), meaning "many, a lot of", and refers to the fact that a polyphyletic group includes organisms arising from multiple ancestral sources. By comparison,
357-546: The group consists of a common ancestor with all its descendant branches. Rodents, for example, are a branch of mammals that split off after the end of the period when the clade Dinosauria stopped being the dominant terrestrial vertebrates 66 million years ago. The original population and all its descendants are a clade. The rodent clade corresponds to the order Rodentia, and insects to the class Insecta. These clades include smaller clades, such as chipmunk or ant , each of which consists of even smaller clades. The clade "rodent"
378-590: The last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming taxa that are not clades; that is, taxa that are not monophyletic . Some of the relationships between organisms that the molecular biology arm of cladistics has revealed include that fungi are closer relatives to animals than they are to plants, archaea are now considered different from bacteria , and multicellular organisms may have evolved from archaea. The term "clade"
399-518: The latter term coined by Ernst Mayr (1965), derived from "clade". The results of phylogenetic/cladistic analyses are tree-shaped diagrams called cladograms ; they, and all their branches, are phylogenetic hypotheses. Three methods of defining clades are featured in phylogenetic nomenclature : node-, stem-, and apomorphy-based (see Phylogenetic nomenclature§Phylogenetic definitions of clade names for detailed definitions). The relationship between clades can be described in several ways: The age of
420-512: The spread of viral infections . HIV , for example, has clades called subtypes, which vary in geographical prevalence. HIV subtype (clade) B, for example is predominant in Europe, the Americas and Japan, whereas subtype A is more common in east Africa. Monophyly In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms , monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being
441-493: The tree to indicate ordered lineal relationships between all the organisms shown. Further, any group may (or may not) be considered a taxon by modern systematics , depending upon the selection of its members in relation to their common ancestor(s); see second and third diagrams. The term monophyly , or monophyletic , derives from the two Ancient Greek words μόνος ( mónos ), meaning "alone, only, unique", and φῦλον ( phûlon ), meaning "genus, species", and refers to
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