Phylogeny, biodiversity, and macroevolution: a qualitative approach

Abstract

A Biodiversity is the product of a unique and non-reproducible historical process. To understand biological diversity and the history responsible for the formation of present biotas, it is fundamental to understand the relationships among recent biotas. The study of changes that occurred above the traditional population level becomes important to reconstruct history in its full time scale. Biological classifi cations resulting from phylogenetic analyses represent direct tools for the comprehension of present biodiversity, because they organize all organisms, present and extinct, around a single central parameter (evolution). This systemic approach has been considered the only compatible theoretical perspective for a macroevolutionary view of biological diversity. Phylogenetic systematics may be seen as the central cogwheel for connecting macroevolutionary theory to the science of biodiversity.