obscure technical terms defined

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: Evolutionary Species Concept - two populations are separate species if they have their own evolutionary history and evolutionary fate, separate from other populations : Biological Species Concept - two populations are separate species only if they can't interbreed and produce fertile offspring : Phylogenetics (a.k.a. "cladistics") - discipline concerned with determining the evolutionary order of branching withing a group of organisms : Sister taxa - two species or taxa that are each other's closest relatives : Allopatry - populations that are geographically isolated from one another . . . the most common process that allows populations to evolve into different species : Peripatry - populations that are geographically adjacent to one another but do not overlap : Sympatry - populations that occupy the same geographic range : Synotopy - species that occupy the same habitat : Apomorphy - a derived characteristic : Synapomorphy - shared, derived characteristic - only type of characteristic that can provide information about the branching order of evolutionary descent : Pleisiomorphy - primitive characteristic : Sympleisiomorphy - shared primitive characteristic - not informative for the group you are working with : Homoplasy - characteristic that is ambiguous - could be convergent (= derived independently in separate lineages), could be a reversal (re-evolution of primitive characteristic). At any rate, is uninformative or even confusing to your analysis. : : If you see any others, feel free to ask! : Troy

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