...Andrew O. Hasley; Kristin P. Jenkins; Hayley Orndorf; J. Phil Gibson Phylogenetic trees are used throughout biology to represent evolutionary relationships and communicate ideas about evolutionary processes. Dedicated instruction in how to read and interpret phylogenetic trees (i.e., tree thinking...

...Sophia Huang; Justen B. Whittall The tree of life provides a fundamental roadmap to understanding biodiversity, yet requires integration across scales of the biological hierarchy and a unique set of tree thinking skills. This combination can be challenging for undergraduates at the introductory...

... or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints . 2017 phylogenetic trees tree thinking evolution introductory biology Phylogenetic trees are essential in nearly all disciplines of biology...

... are constructed to represent relationships among organisms and their common ancestors. We use the activity featured in “Investigating Tree Thinking & Ancestry with Cladograms” (in the previous issue of ABT ) to lead students to uncover the idea of common ancestry and develop skills in reading phylogenetic...

...KD Davenport; Kirstin Jane Milks; Rebecca Van Tassell Interpreting cladograms is a key skill for biological literacy. In this lesson, students interpret cladograms based on familial relationships and language relationships to build their understanding of tree thinking and to construct a definition...

... of Biology Teachers 2011 Evolution phylogenetics tree thinking estimating species divergence times software TimeTree allows the user to input two species names (common or scientific) to estimate the last time those two species shared a common ancestor (Figure 1). The tool uses molecular...

... evolution phylogenetics tree thinking Many students, teachers, and even some scientists struggle to make sense of phylogenetic trees ( Baum et al., 2005 ), which are commonly used in both textbooks and classroom instruction. Rather than ignore student struggles, it is time to address the challenge...