The following questions refer to the hypothetical patterns of taxonomic hierarchy shown in Figure 26.2.

-Which of the following is not True of all horizontally oriented phylogenetic trees, where time advances to the right?
A)Each branch point represents a point in absolute time.
B)Organisms represented at the base of such trees are ancestral to those represented at higher levels.
C)The more branch points that occur between two taxa, the more divergent their DNA sequences should be.
D)The common ancestor represented by the rightmost branch point existed more recently in time than the common ancestors represented at branch points located to the left.
E)The more branch points there are, the more taxa are likely to be represented.

Question

The following questions refer to the hypothetical patterns of taxonomic hierarchy shown in Figure 26.2.

-Which of the following is not True of all horizontally oriented phylogenetic trees, where time advances to the right?
A)Each branch point represents a point in absolute time. 
B)Organisms represented at the base of such trees are ancestral to those represented at higher levels. 
C)The more branch points that occur between two taxa, the more divergent their DNA sequences should be. 
D)The common ancestor represented by the rightmost branch point existed more recently in time than the common ancestors represented at branch points located to the left. 
E)The more branch points there are, the more taxa are likely to be represented.

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Not all horizontally oriented phylogenetic trees necessarily represent absolute time. Some trees may represent relative evolutionary distance or similarity, rather than actual time. Therefore, choice A is not always true, while choices B, C, D, and E generally hold for all phylogenetic trees, regardless of their orientation.

The Following Questions Refer to the Hypothetical Patterns of Taxonomic