phylogenetic
adjective
phy·lo·ge·net·ic
| \ ˌfī-lō-jə-ˈne-tik
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Definition of phylogenetic
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Other Words from phylogenetic
phylogenetically
\ ˌfī-lō-jə-ˈne-ti-k(ə-)lē
\
adverb
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adverb
Examples of phylogenetic in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
In the past six years, Julien d’Huy, a scholar at the Institut des Mondes Africains, has performed a series of phylogenetic analyses on fifty-six variants of the Polyphemus tale. — Ferris Jabr, Harper's magazine, "The Story of Storytelling," 10 Mar. 2019 Ballesteros and others have been sequencing horseshoe crabs for some time, allowing for the creation of what's known as a phylogenetic dataset, a fancy way of saying a family tree. — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, "Study: Horseshoe Crabs Really Are Arachnids, Just Like Spiders," 28 Feb. 2019 But horizontal gene transfer is most frequent among microbes—especially our newfound friends, archaea—and HGT appears to generate a large share of the phylogenetic interconnections that make life such a tangled tree. — David P. Barash, WSJ, "‘The Tangled Tree’ Review: From Tiny Seeds," 9 Aug. 2018 Steppe by steppe That branching seems to have been part of a Y. pestis population explosion around 4,000 years ago, which is when phylogenetic analysis of ancient bacterial genomes suggests that plague strains diversified rapidly. — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, "4,000-year-old genomes point to origins of bubonic plague," 12 June 2018 And according to a phylogenetic tree mapping the evolutionary relationship between the genomes, one of the nine major genotypes circulating today was the product of an ancient recombination between two strains of the hepatitis B virus. — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, "Genghis Khan’s Mongol horde probably had rampant Hepatitis B," 11 May 2018 The team used the phylogenetic trees to estimate how long ago each branch of the tree split off from the others. — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, "Polynesians may not have gone grocery shopping in South America," 12 Apr. 2018 Based on a 1980 book by biologists Niles Eldredge and Joel Cracraft, under the definition of a phylogenetic species, animal species now can differ by just 2 percent of their DNA to be considered separate. — Ben Panko, Smithsonian, "What Does It Mean to Be a Species? Genetics Is Changing the Answer," 19 May 2017 Collins points out that medievalists studying copying errors in manuscripts have long used the same phylogenetic programs that evolutionary biologists use to study how DNA mutations appear over time. — Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, "Sampling DNA From a 1,000-Year-Old Illuminated Manuscript," 8 Aug. 2017These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'phylogenetic.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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More Definitions for phylogenetic
phylogenetic
adjective
phy·lo·ge·net·ic
| \ ˌfī-lō-jə-ˈnet-ik
\
\
Medical Definition of phylogenetic
1
: of or relating to phylogeny
2
: based on natural evolutionary relationships
3
: acquired in the course of phylogenetic development
Other Words from phylogenetic
phylogenetically
\ -i-k(ə-)lē
\
adverb
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adverb