Fossils and plant phylogeny

Fossils and plant phylogeny.

Developing a detailed estimate of plant phylogeny is the key first step toward a more sophisticated and particularized understanding of plant evolution. At many levels in the hierarchy of plant life, it will be impossible to develop an adequate understanding of plant phylogeny without taking into account the additional diversity provided by fossil plants. This is especially the case for relativ...

Fossils, Phylogeny, and Form: An Analytical Approach

In the eleven years since Harvey and Pagel (1991), evolutionary biologists committed considerable methodological effort into the relationship between phylogeny and numerous types of patterns. Morphology , Shape and Phylogeny and Fossils, Phylogeny, and Form both concern themselves with these issues. The former book deals primarily with the relationship between phylogeny and continuous mor-phome...

The Importance of Fossils in Elucidating Seed Plant Phylogeny and Macroevolution

Doyle, J.A. and Donoghue, M.J., 1987. The importance of fossils in elucidating seed plant phylogeny and macroevolution. Rev. Palaeobot. Palynol., 50: 63--95. In order to gain insights on the controversial question of the value of fossils in understanding phylogeny and macroevolution, we used numerical parsimony methods to analyze a data set amassed for a cladistic study of living and fossil see...

The Importance of Fossils in Phylogeny Reconstruction

It is widely believed that fossils are of fundamental importance in reconstructing phylogeny (e.g. 24, 28). Simpson (52, p. 83), for example, argued "fossils provide tl?,e soundest basis for evolutionary classification." Although phylogenies of many groups have been reconstructed using morphological or chemical characters of extant organisms alone, it is often noted that fossils would have been...

The Debate on Avian Ancestry Phylogeny , Function , and Fossils LAWRENCE