phylogenetic

phy·lo·ge·net·ic | \ ˌfī-lō-jə-ˈne-tik

How to pronounce phylogenetic (audio)

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Definition of phylogenetic

1 : of or relating to phylogeny

2 : based on natural evolutionary relationships

3 : acquired in the course of phylogenetic development : racial

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Examples of phylogenetic in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web To determine the relation, UAB said researchers performed a phylogenetic analysis to compare the features of different turtle species to see how closely, or distantly, related the species could be. — Ivana Hrynkiw | Ihrynkiw@al.com, al, "Ancient sea turtle fossil found in Alabama named new genus, species," 7 Jan. 2020 Calvignac-Spencer's team drew up a new phylogenetic tree using the 1912 genome as well as a new one from 1960, pieced together from a sample in another collection, and other available genomes. — Kai Kupferschmidt, Science | AAAS, "Measles may have emerged when large cities rose, 1500 years earlier than thought," 30 Dec. 2019 By comparing slight differences in the number and height of spectral peaks, a computer could correctly slot eggshell samples from more than a dozen dinosaurs, including early birds, onto a phylogenetic tree. — Gretchen Vogel, Science | AAAS, "Warm-blooded velociraptors? Fossilized proteins unravel dinosaur mysteries," 8 Oct. 2019 In the past six years, Julien d’Huy, a scholar at the Institut des Mondes Africains, has performed a series of phylogenetic analyses on fifty-six variants of the Polyphemus tale. — Ferris Jabr, Harper's magazine, "The Story of Storytelling," 10 Mar. 2019 Ballesteros and others have been sequencing horseshoe crabs for some time, allowing for the creation of what's known as a phylogenetic dataset, a fancy way of saying a family tree. — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, "Study: Horseshoe Crabs Really Are Arachnids, Just Like Spiders," 28 Feb. 2019 But horizontal gene transfer is most frequent among microbes—especially our newfound friends, archaea—and HGT appears to generate a large share of the phylogenetic interconnections that make life such a tangled tree. — David P. Barash, WSJ, "‘The Tangled Tree’ Review: From Tiny Seeds," 9 Aug. 2018 Steppe by steppe That branching seems to have been part of a Y. pestis population explosion around 4,000 years ago, which is when phylogenetic analysis of ancient bacterial genomes suggests that plague strains diversified rapidly. — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, "4,000-year-old genomes point to origins of bubonic plague," 12 June 2018 And according to a phylogenetic tree mapping the evolutionary relationship between the genomes, one of the nine major genotypes circulating today was the product of an ancient recombination between two strains of the hepatitis B virus. — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, "Genghis Khan’s Mongol horde probably had rampant Hepatitis B," 11 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'phylogenetic.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Last Updated

18 Jan 2020

Cite this Entry

“Phylogenetic.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phylogenetic. Accessed 19 January 2020.

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