Assignment task: Below is a list of the species to be included in your trees. Each of these species has at least one cytochrome c gene published in GenBank.
| Common name |
Scientific name |
| Pink salmon |
Oncorhynchus gorbuscha |
| Ringed seal |
Pusa hispida |
| Harbour porpoise |
Phocoena phocoena |
| Dog |
Canis lupus familiaris |
| American bullfrog |
Rana catesbeiana |
| Sidewinder rattlesnake |
Crotalus cerastes |
| House mouse |
Mus musculus |
| European rabbit |
Oryctolagus cuniculus |
| Greater musky fruit bat |
Ptenochirus jagorii |
| American crow |
Corvus Brachyrhynchos |
| Emu |
Dromaius hollandiae |
Tree based on morphology
Construct a phylogenetic tree showing your hypothesis for how these species are related, based on physical characteristics. There is not a single possible solution here, and you will be assessed on the rationale for your tree.
1. Start by constructing a table listing all species and scoring characteristics (you can consider physical, ecological, behavioural). Pattern this table after Table 1 (above). You can decide what characteristics may be important to discern relationships, and construct your list accordingly.
1. Here are just a few to consider: number of limbs, egg characteristics, presence of scales or other ectodermal keratin-based structures derived from scales, wings and/or flight, dentition.
2. Next, construct a table to summarize total number of pairwise differences. Pattern this after Table 2 (above).
3. Next, use the information from these tables to construct a phylogenetic tree.
4. Label the nodes on the tree to indicate the characteristic that defines each node.
5. Please provide a detailed explanation for how you constructed your tree. What was the basis for defining groups? What characteristics do you believe were most important in defining groups? Why? What do shared characteristics suggest about relatedness? Why?
6. Most of the characteristics you identified that define a phylogenetic grouping are expected to be homologies. Did you identify any homoplasies that would suggest convergent evolution? If so, what characteristics would you suggest are homoplasies