I don’t think I was ever taught about clades and I am confused by them. Are they there to challenge the hierarchy of Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, etc. etc. or are they something else? Have they replaced any of those D.,K.,P., C., O., F., G., S.? Should I italicize clades?
Please help. Thanks!
In: 2
> Are they there to challenge the hierarchy of Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, etc. etc. or are they something else?
As other commenters have mentioned, a ‘clade’ is just any group of all organisms who share a particular common ancestor. Each of those traditional levels is (meant to be) a clade. AIUI a lot of biologists now prefer to just use ‘clade’ instead of any of those traditional hierarchical levels, though, because it turns out there’s *waaaaaaay* more branching in the actual tree of evolutionary history than a limited set of named levels could ever possibly handle, and different modern species can find themselves at *very different* depths in that tree.
Latest Answers