Uses for evolutionary trees.
The general impression of molecular evolution is often that one sequences a gene from a number of organisms and infers the evolutionary relations of the organisms. Indeed, if the sequences turn out to be orthologous and the data robust, one will get a phylogeny (tree) depicting those historical relations. But what one really obtains is a gene tree (I shall henceforth assume that the data are robust; that is another problem) and the biological messages implicit in that tree can be quite various. This article lists a number of those messages that one may have or may wish to look for.
Fitch
W M
WM
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California at Irvine 92717, USA.
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005815:Genetic Code / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D009975:Orthomyxoviridae / Q000235:genetics; D011995:Recombination, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013997:Time Factors; D014721:Vesicular stomatitis Indiana virus / Q000235:genetics