Concepts of Classification and Taxonomy Phylogenetic Classification

¹ Univ. Grenoble Alpes, IPAG, 38000 Grenoble, France
² CNRS, IPAG, 38000 Grenoble, France

Abstract

Phylogenetic approaches to classification have been heavily developed in biology by bioinformaticians. But these techniques have applications in other fields, in particular in linguistics. Their main characteristics is to search for relationships between the objects or species in study, instead of grouping them by similarity. They are thus rather well suited for any kind of evolutionary objects. For nearly fifteen years, astrocladistics has explored the use of Maximum Parsimony (or cladistics) for astronomical objects like galaxies or globular clusters. In this lesson we will learn how it works.