cladistics
Americannoun
noun
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A system of classification based on the presumed phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history of groups of organisms, rather than purely on shared features. Many taxonomists prefer cladistics to the traditional hierarchies of Linnean classification systems.
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Compare Linnean
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cladistics
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
After the homologous and analogous traits are sorted, scientists often organize the homologous traits using a system called cladistics.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
He joined the American Museum of Natural History later that year, and made important contributions to the field of cladistics, which categorizes species along the lines of shared characteristics to build evolutionary trees.
From New York Times ● Apr. 17, 2020
Both views draw support from cladistics studies, and the so-called woody magnoliid hypothesis—which proposes that the early ancestors of angiosperms were shrubs—also offers molecular biological evidence.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2015
But palaeontologists tore up that evolutionary tree when they started using a more rigorous form of analysis called cladistics in the 1990s.
From Nature ● Oct. 23, 2013
Western researchers and international journals have been using cladistics for more than two decades, but it has been slow to catch on in China.
From Nature ● Sep. 5, 2012
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
