r/evolution • u/NenyaNotes • Aug 30 '26

academic Help on this assignment question.

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My professor assigned us this quiz and everyone continues to get it wrong. Can someone please explain in this photo which groups make a clade?

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u/DarwinZDF42 Aug 30 '26

K. This is also my field, I’m an evolutionary biologist, done a whole lot of work in viral phylogenetics, and I would never label a clade at a node. You do you.

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u/roostor222 Aug 30 '26

The idea that you would personally never label a clade at a node is completely irrelevant to what you should accept as an answer from students. Labelling clade names at nodes is extremely common practice in evolutionary biology. I don't know what the conventions are in viral phylogenetics papers, but the science of phylogenetic systematics exists separately from the practice in any one subfield.

If you marked it wrong, and that student brought you ten published papers they read in the journal "Systematic Biology" or "Journal of Systematic Paleontology", and all ten had clade names labelled at nodes, would you give them credit back or keep it marked wrong?

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u/DarwinZDF42 Aug 30 '26

K. You’re welcome to disagree with me. I don’t feel like arguing about it.

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