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  1. Basal (phylogenetics) - Wikipedia

    • In phylogenetics, basal is the direction of the base (or root) of a rooted phylogenetic tree or cladogram. The term may be more strictly applied only to nodes adjacent to the root, or more loosely applied to nodes regarded as being close to the root. Note that extant taxa that lie on branches connecting directly to the root are not more closely related to the root t… See more

    Usage

    A basal group in the stricter sense forms a sister group to the rest of the larger clade, as in the following case:
    While … See more

    Examples

    The flowering plant family Amborellaceae, restricted to New Caledonia in the southwestern Pacific, is a basal clade of extant angiosperms, consisting of the most species, genus, family and order within the group that … See more

    Relevance to biogeographic history

    Given that the deepest phylogenetic split in a group is likely to have occurred early in its history, identification of the most basal subclade(s) in a widely dispersed taxon or clade can provide valuable insight into its region of or… See more

     
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