Stratocladistics is a technique in
phylogenetics
In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek language, Greek wikt:φυλή, φυλή/wikt:φῦλον, φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary his ...
of making Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inferences using both
geological
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Eart ...
and
morphobiological data. It follows many of the same rules as
cladistics
Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...
, using
Bayesian logic
Bayesian probability is an interpretation of the concept of probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation representing a state of knowledge or as quantification o ...
to quantify how good a phylogenetic hypothesis is in terms of debt and
parsimony
Parsimony refers to the quality of economy or frugality in the use of resources.
Parsimony may also refer to
* The Law of Parsimony, or Occam's razor, a problem-solving principle
** Maximum parsimony (phylogenetics), an optimality criterion in p ...
. However, in addition to the morphological debt that is used to determine phylogenetic dissimilarities in cladistics, there is also
stratigraphic
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostrati ...
debt which adds the dimension of time to the equation.
Although stratocladistics has been viewed with suspicion by some workers, it represents a total evidence approach that has some advantages over traditional cladistic approaches. For example, stratocladistics has been shown to outperform simple parsimony in tests based on simulated data and stratocladistics has better resolution than simple cladistics, with fewer equally parsimonious trees than in a basic cladistic analysis.
References
Further reading
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External links
{{cite web , title = StrataPhy, url=http://www.uv.es/pe/2008_1/142/index.html — software for stratocladistic reconstructions
Phylogenetics