Introduction: Evolutionary analysis seeks to classify microorganisms.

A method by which one can classify microorganisms is by studying the evolutionary history of a group, the phylogeny, which can be represented by a phylogram. This can be determined by examining the relatedness of microorganisms using molecular sequences. Because evolution is a process of inherited nucleotide change, analyzing differences in DNA sequence allows for the construction og the phylogenetic history of a microorganism. All phylogenetic trees provide the same basic information: a historical pattern of ancestry, divergence, and descent.(Evolution sss) Materials: A computer was used during this experiment. The organisms used to create a phylogram were 1. Helicobacter pylori 2. Bartonella Bacilliformis 3. Rickettsia rickettsii 4. Dinococcus radiodurans 5.Micobacterium tuberculosis 6. Anabaena sp. 7. Cytophaga latercula 8. Methanococcus jannaschii 9. Thermotaga subterranean 10. Thermotoga subterranean 11. Actinomyces bowdenii 12. Actinomyces turicensis 13. Saccharomyces cervisiae 14. Salmonella typhi Results

Discussion: 1. Based on a Tree of life shown in Figure 1, the internal nodes represent the points in evolution where an extinct ancestor diverged into new entities. Each entity began to accumulate differences in its independent subsequent evolution. The terminal nodes represent individual strains of microorganisms that exist now and from which sequence data were obtained. 2. In figure 2, the species that are most closely related are 2 and 3 because one can see that the species share the same node and this have a recent common ancestor. The species that are more distantly related are 1 and 4 because they share noe (a), the root of the tree, which is a far distance from each of their positions in the tree. 3. In figure 2, 1 is equally related to 4 and 5 because 4 and 5 share the same number of nodes. Each of their branch length is the same and so they have had the same number of changes as well.

4. The key steps for constructing a phylogenetic tree are 1) choosing a gene common to all species 2. Finding the sequence in FASTA 3)Aligning the sequences 4. Following the procedure in the lab manual. 5. The reason why we use 18S rRNA information for yeast and 16S for prokaryotes is because 18S rRNA is found in eukaryotes, while 16S rRNA is found in prokaryotes. It is possible to use other molecules as phylogenetic markers as long as the phylogenetic marker is found in all organism being analyzed, is functionally conserved, varies only slightly between organisms and has adequate length. Summary: A phylogram allows one to study the evolutionary history of a group and it can be constructed by using molecular sequences. References: Gregory, T. (2008). Understanding Evolutionary Trees. Evolution: Education and outreach, 1(2), 121-137.