phylogeny

noun

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phy·log·e·ny | \ fī-ˈlä-jə-nē

plural phylogenies

Definition of phylogeny

1 : the evolutionary history of a kind of organism

2 : the evolution of a genetically related group of organisms as distinguished from the development of the individual organism

3 : the history or course of the development of something (such as a word or custom)

Examples of phylogeny in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web To do this work, Professor Székely and his collaborators conducted a variety of statistical analyses on weaverbird diet, habitat type, distribution, and social behavior and compared these results to the weaverbird phylogeny (family tree). — Grrlscientist, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2022 Their scripts compared data from the animal experiments to the species’ phylogeny, a web describing their evolutionary relatedness. — Max G. Levy, Wired, 25 Jan. 2022 The researchers resolved to reconstruct the phylogeny—or family tree of evolutionary relationships—of these groups from 56 million to 15 million years ago. — Max G. Levy, Wired, 2 Nov. 2021 To determine how these viral samples are related to each other, researchers use computer tools to construct the virus’s family tree, or phylogeny. — Marilyn J. Roossinck, The Conversation, 7 June 2021 Tracking down and sequencing the DNA of all the samples at the heart of this phylogeny took the project’s 21 collaborators six years. — Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Dec. 2020 The researchers’ main goal was to create an accurate, detailed evolutionary tree, or phylogeny, for this large group of birds by sequencing the DNA of every single species in the group. — Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Dec. 2020 Overview of the history of discovery, taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of Majungasaurus crenatissimus from the late Cretaceous of Madagascar. — Fox News, 3 Dec. 2019 So this evidence provides information about the timing of arrival of this ancestry type, and their movement parallels the linguistic phylogeny of Indo-European languages, which today are spoken in places as far away as Ireland to New Delhi. — Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian, 5 Sep. 2019 See More

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