paraphyly
Sign in to savethumb|300px|In this phylogenetic tree, the green group is paraphyletic; it is composed of a common ancestor (the lowest green vertical stem) and some of its descendants, but it excludes the blue group (a monophyletic group) which diverged from the green group.
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A paraphyletic group is a set of organisms that includes a common ancestor and some—but not all—of its descendants, leaving out other descendant groups that branched off from it. Scientists generally avoid using paraphyletic groups in formal classification because they don't cleanly represent the actual branches of evolutionary history the way more complete groupings do.
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Article
12 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Phylogenetics
- In cladistics
- Examples
- Paraphyly in species
- Uses for paraphyletic groups
- Linguistics
- See also
- Explanatory notes
- References
- Bibliography
- External links
thumb|300px|In this phylogenetic tree, the green group is paraphyletic; it is composed of a common ancestor (the lowest green vertical stem) and some of its descendants, but it excludes the blue group (a monophyletic group) which diverged from the green group.
Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic with respect to the excluded subgroups. In contrast, a monophyletic grouping (a clade) includes a common ancestor and all of its descendants.