Comparative phylogenetics

Comparative phylogenetics is like playing a game of "who's related to whom?" with animals and plants. Imagine you're in a big family and you have many cousins. You might want to know who your closest cousin is or who your ancestor was. Scientists do something similar with plants and animals to find out who their common ancestor was a long time ago.

To do this, they compare the physical and genetic traits of these organisms. They try to find similarities and differences in their structures, behaviors or DNA sequences. Then they use this information to build a family tree or a diagram of how all these organisms are related to each other.

This is like drawing a family tree to see who is related to whom. But instead of using names and photos, scientists use data from the species they are studying. They do this with software programs that can analyze the data and create a branching diagram that shows the relationships between different species, just like a family tree would.

By studying these relationships, scientists can learn a lot about the evolution of different species, such as how they evolved and adapted over time. This can help us better understand how life on Earth has changed and how it might continue to change in the future.