Biological Systematics

Most students taking a course in biological systematics do so to learn how to construct a data matrix and generate and evaluate a tree of phylogenetic relationships. This text is a tool for these students and their instructors. Systematics, the study of the reconstruction of the history of life, forms the underlying basis for organizing the knowledge of biology; cladistics is the diagrammatic method of charting phylogenetic relationships over time among evolving life forms. Cladistics analysis, the key tool used in this book, is also of great use outside pure systematic studies, and interests many students of population biology, ecology, epidemiology and natural resources. Suitable for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the text covers the core material for courses in biological systematics, with equal emphasis on both botany and zoology. It includes sections on the history and resources of the field; biological nomenclature; the theory of homology, character analysis and computer algorithms; and the application of the results of systematic studies in the areas of biological classification, biogeography, adaptation and co-evolution, and biodiversity and conservation.