the relationship between adaptation and phylonegy?

Answer 1

Phylogeny?
These people tell us that when there is a calamity, the species must either move, adapt (evolve to a different form), or die. When the last option is rejected, the animal changes its structure to meet the demands of the harsh environment. Each species in a family goes to a different place. When the conditions in that place change, so do the individual species in order to make themselves more suitable. The study of how one species becomes more species as it adapts is called phylogeny. After phylogeny comes taxonomy which is the classification of species. Then comes nomenclature which names the species accordingly. Ex: When the land split apart, long time ago, some species went on one island and others of the same species went another way. Years later, when you compare these two, they are much different from each other because each species adapted to its new situation. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Lets start with some definitions because I am not in love with either answer given so far.

Phylogeny is the evolutionary history of a species. Its family tree if you will. In other words, Phylogeny is the history of the process of speciation.

Adaptation in an evolutionary context can be defined as a correlation of a species with its environment. In other words Adaptation is a term that describes those characteristics of a critter that make it well suited for its environment (e.g. the structures , like the elaborate nose, that allows the desert dwelling kangaroo rat to conserve water and derive all its water from seeds). Only one evolutionary process can result in Adaptation and that is Natural Selection.

So your question really comes down to this... What is the relationship between Natural Selection and Speciation?

This question is not simple and will not be answered here. Suffice to say, natural selection plays a big role in speciation but other mechanisms especially genetic Drift almost certainly play a huge role. Stephen Jay Gould described the biological history of the earth as a punctuated equilibrium where long periods of stable species numbers are punctuated with short periods of rapid diversification. These periods of diversification likely occur after large disasters when populations are reduced in number and geographically isolated. This is the ideal situation Genetic Drift to allow populations to move away from the current adaptations and once they do Natural selections can identify new adaptations. If this results in reproductive isolation, voila, new species.

Answer 3

great answer manutd4ever !! couldn't have said it better myself!!

also check out:
http://www.wormatlas.org/handbook/phylogeny/phylogeny.htm