Molecular phylogenetics: In spite of impressive advances, there remains a need for research on biological and methodical questions

Abstract

With the recent development of molecular genetics, research on the phylogeny of organisms has made great progress. In particular, the development of new DNA sequencing techniques and efficient heuristic methods for data analysis have been important. Repeatedly, the traditional classification of animals could be revised; however, there remain unanswered questions. The results are often contradictory, especially when events from the early days of the evolution of multicellular organisms are reconstructed. In other cases, phylogenetic trees obtained from DNA data do not match the anatomical data. Systematic errors of algorithms as well as the availability of a phylogenetic signal in the data need further investigation.