Glossary in Phylogeny Construction

H


Heuristic

This is an algorithm that uses a short-cut or educated guess in order to reduce the amount of time necessary to execute an algorithm or method.

Higgins, Des

The original author of the CLUSTAL suite of programs for performing automated, progressive multiple sequence alignment.

Homolog

This is a gene or morphological character that shares a common ancestry with a different gene or morphological character.

Homologous

Descended from a common ancestor.  Defined in 1843 by Richard Owen, the British Palaeontologist as the "same organ under every variety of form and function".  For molecular sequence data, it is taken to mean that two sequences or even two characters within sequences are descended from a common ancestor. 

Homology

see Homologous.

Homoplasy

The existance of characters that have been subject to reversals, convergences or parallelisms.

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