Tree Thinking

Evolutionary trees, or phylogenies, are essential tools in modern biology that depict the evolutionary relationships among species and common ancestry. However, tree thinking does not come naturally and is often misinterpreted. For example, people may incorrectly conclude that a frog is more closely related to a fish than to a human based on a phylogenetic tree. This error arises from reading trees by the branching tips rather than interpreting them as nested groups of shared common ancestors. While tree thinking is challenging, it is an important framework for understanding evidence of evolution and evolutionary relationships.