Definition of cladistics in English:
cladistics
plural nounkləˈdɪstɪkskləˈdistiks
Biology treated as singular A method of classification of animals and plants that aims to identify and take account of only those shared characteristics which can be deduced to have originated in the common ancestor of a group of species during evolution, not those arising by convergence.
Example sentencesExamples
- Today, cladistics is the method of choice for classifying life because it recognizes and employs evolutionary theory.
- The second half of the 20th century has seen the advent of two revolutions in systematics: cladistics and molecular phylogenetics.
- Of course, it is possible to do cladistics without reference to evolution, but nothing in biology makes much sense-including cladistics-except in the light of evolution.
- He was an early champion of cladistics in paleontology, which at the time was a new approach to studying questions in that subject.
- The basic idea behind cladistics is that members of a group share a common evolutionary history, and are ‘closely related’, more so to members of the same group than to other organisms.
Derivatives
nounˈkladɪz(ə)m
Biology The two main methods for developing phylogenies in palaeontology are evolutionary systematics and phylogenetic systematics or cladism.
Example sentencesExamples
- He also tried to characterize my enthusiasm for the theropod origin as ‘the zeal of new school cladism.’
- But to reject process cladism on the austere grounds of some idealised pattern cladist purity of inference is equally mistaken.
- However, in two places I was surprised to find that the scientist - who earlier had exposed himself as a pronounced skeptic against pattern cladism - argues like a transformed cladist.
- They argue against cladism and are in favour of retaining the Linnean methodology.
adjective
Biology He has the distinction of being one of the very early converts to cladistic methods in vertebrate paleontology.
Example sentencesExamples
- We are not aware, however, of any previous studies that have used cladistic methods to define paleontological species.
- In general, recent cladistic analyses have not yet fully exploited the power of cladistics to test available competing hypotheses.
- He argues that a cladistic treatment of data from diploid and allopolyploid taxa together will inevitably produce a wrong result.
- However, a cladistic approach to phenotype association studies does not require a complete absence of recombination.
Origin
1960s: from clade + -ist + -ics.