Systematics and Biodiversity Conservation

This exercise uses a fictional group of turtles to demonstrate how to implement cladistic methodology. Using a step-by-step guide, students work to find the most parsimonious cladogram for these fictional turtles. Part I involves delineating characters and building a most parsimonious cladogram based on the distribution of character states, while Part II presents additional challenges by introducing homoplasy. This exercise is designed to familiarize students with the concepts of phylogeny and cladistics, expand their skills of phylogenetic analysis, and use phylogenetic information to determine conservation priority.