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"it has had more time to evolve" - that phrase needs reworking. I don't have the time now, but it needed mentioning. I think this is a good start. I came here from the page on Mockingbirds. Your examples relating humans and plants may make perfect sense to a professional, but this layman's mind has to stretch way too far to place plants and humans on the same clade. Couldn't you choose a clade within vertebrates, or synapsids or something? Who's basal in human evolution? I am merely a bird loving artist who stumbled upon this article--but I feel it's an important bit of info that could be better explicated to the layman. And, as a luxury, perhaps having links to creatures that are considered basal would be illuminating. Francis Smith ( talk) 01:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, so we've all done it (even I've done it), but this notion of a terminal taxon being "basal" in a tree is a common terminological abuse. The base of a tree is its root. None of the terminal species in a cladogram can be said to be basal, that's why they are terminal. The term "basal" simply means towards the root of the tree. Consider the cladogram used in the example:
Basal group | |||||||||||||
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Suppose we simply collapse the "Non-basal" terminals and add an outgroup. We get:
Outgroup | |||||||
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Which side of the tree is basal now? Neither. That's because all nodes in a cladogram are rotatable. In both cases, the correct way to report the topology is that "Basal group" is the sister group of "Non-basal group". The reason is because we're not actually justified in calling it "basal" any more than we are justified in calling it "primitive". In fact, both terms implie exactly the same thing anyway—that the taxon in question is somehow exhibiting more ancestral features. This is certainly not the case. It simply happens to be a smaller clade and may or may not have a greater number of apomorphic states.
Please see: Krell, F.-T. and Cranston, P. (2004). "Which side of the tree is more basal?". Systematic Entomology 29 (3): 279–281. doi:10.1111/j.0307-6970.2004.00262.x. The Braz ( talk) 12:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
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I'm confused about the meaning of the last example involving the family Hominidae and orangutans. Is this diagram illustrating a clade? If so, are orangutans the basal member? Brycehughes ( talk) 04:23, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
States: A basal clade can be described as the earliest clade (of a given taxonomic rank[a]) to branch within a larger clade. Can anyone please clarify what, if anything, this means? The Braz ( talk) 12:28, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
The intro is excessively technical. A naive reader will be lost. I know something about clades and I am overwhelmed by the technicality. I know it is possible to explain this better. Please, someone help. Zaslav ( talk) 06:23, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
The phrase "Very Basal" just sounds wrong to me, yet a search shows it used 67 times in Wikipedia.
Question: Is this a real term, in which case can it be defined here in the article please, or should this be edited to a simple "Basal" in the referencing articles? Thank you Kiore ( talk) 05:39, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
While the term "basal lineage" is often used, this is a loose way of saying the lineage possesses ancestral character(s). Every lineage within a given clade can be traced traced back to the root of the clade, so all of them are equally "basal". Every lineage in biology (with the possible exception of those for viruses) can be traced back to the origin of life. Thus, the term "basal lineage", taken literally, is nonsensical. This is in contrast to the situation with clades, where whether or not a clade is basal within a larger clade depends on its topological position within that clade, independent of any consideration of characters. "Lineage" is also sometimes used loosely to mean "clade". WolfmanSF ( talk) 18:36, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Based on the comments above, and various other published works, I completely redid this article, specifically to try and discourage the "misuse" of the word "basal" to represent sister groups. I deleted most of the examples, and nearly all should be moved to the sister group article if they should even be kept at all. It is not clear to me what the correct usage should be other than talking about deep nodes (not taxa deriving from those nodes) but perhaps someone else could add this. Wrfrancis ( talk) 09:46, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
The new account is clear and helpful, but frankly the term "basal" appears in it as magnificently obscure and difficult; further, it is clear that some (many?) scientists have at times applied it very loosely if not "wrongly".
I think Peter coxhead's comment is key here: we as editors should analyse the literature and report on what is there, not on what we believe. If 80% of scientists think one thing and 20% another, then we should report both the majority and the minority views, making clear their relative frequency. If a term has multiple meanings in such different usages, it is a bit awkward in an article as this isn't a dictionary: we may need to include See alsos or otherwise cross-refer to related articles (such as on sister clades). On the choice of examples, it will be much the best if we can use examples published in the literature, so they can be cited directly. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 06:53, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
"basal character" OR "basal characteristic" OR "basal trait"
throws up large numbers of papers using such terms.In phylogenetics, the term basal can be correctly applied to clades of organisms, but not to lineages or to individual traits possessed by the organisms—although it may be misused in these ways in technical literature.It's simply a fact that "basal" is widely applied to mean or to relate to "possessing ancestral rather than derived characters", and we should not be saying flatly that this is a misuse: I might well agree with those who claim that it is, we shouldn't say this in an editorial voice in a Wikipedia article. Peter coxhead ( talk) 08:26, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I really do not like the direction this has gone. I felt like my redo was mostly objective, reflecting the usage and the criticism of that usage. Given that, I would STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST starting the article stating that a basal lineage is a sister group to the remaining diversity in that group. This is imprecise usage, and the fact that it is used in some papers does not justify the definition. As mentioned above, usage of terms is not always consistent, but the criticisms of such inconsistency have been presented in primary literature before. I would advise reverting to my version. Wrfrancis ( talk) 17:08, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
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"it has had more time to evolve" - that phrase needs reworking. I don't have the time now, but it needed mentioning. I think this is a good start. I came here from the page on Mockingbirds. Your examples relating humans and plants may make perfect sense to a professional, but this layman's mind has to stretch way too far to place plants and humans on the same clade. Couldn't you choose a clade within vertebrates, or synapsids or something? Who's basal in human evolution? I am merely a bird loving artist who stumbled upon this article--but I feel it's an important bit of info that could be better explicated to the layman. And, as a luxury, perhaps having links to creatures that are considered basal would be illuminating. Francis Smith ( talk) 01:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, so we've all done it (even I've done it), but this notion of a terminal taxon being "basal" in a tree is a common terminological abuse. The base of a tree is its root. None of the terminal species in a cladogram can be said to be basal, that's why they are terminal. The term "basal" simply means towards the root of the tree. Consider the cladogram used in the example:
Basal group | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Suppose we simply collapse the "Non-basal" terminals and add an outgroup. We get:
Outgroup | |||||||
| |||||||
Which side of the tree is basal now? Neither. That's because all nodes in a cladogram are rotatable. In both cases, the correct way to report the topology is that "Basal group" is the sister group of "Non-basal group". The reason is because we're not actually justified in calling it "basal" any more than we are justified in calling it "primitive". In fact, both terms implie exactly the same thing anyway—that the taxon in question is somehow exhibiting more ancestral features. This is certainly not the case. It simply happens to be a smaller clade and may or may not have a greater number of apomorphic states.
Please see: Krell, F.-T. and Cranston, P. (2004). "Which side of the tree is more basal?". Systematic Entomology 29 (3): 279–281. doi:10.1111/j.0307-6970.2004.00262.x. The Braz ( talk) 12:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
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I'm confused about the meaning of the last example involving the family Hominidae and orangutans. Is this diagram illustrating a clade? If so, are orangutans the basal member? Brycehughes ( talk) 04:23, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
States: A basal clade can be described as the earliest clade (of a given taxonomic rank[a]) to branch within a larger clade. Can anyone please clarify what, if anything, this means? The Braz ( talk) 12:28, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
The intro is excessively technical. A naive reader will be lost. I know something about clades and I am overwhelmed by the technicality. I know it is possible to explain this better. Please, someone help. Zaslav ( talk) 06:23, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
The phrase "Very Basal" just sounds wrong to me, yet a search shows it used 67 times in Wikipedia.
Question: Is this a real term, in which case can it be defined here in the article please, or should this be edited to a simple "Basal" in the referencing articles? Thank you Kiore ( talk) 05:39, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
While the term "basal lineage" is often used, this is a loose way of saying the lineage possesses ancestral character(s). Every lineage within a given clade can be traced traced back to the root of the clade, so all of them are equally "basal". Every lineage in biology (with the possible exception of those for viruses) can be traced back to the origin of life. Thus, the term "basal lineage", taken literally, is nonsensical. This is in contrast to the situation with clades, where whether or not a clade is basal within a larger clade depends on its topological position within that clade, independent of any consideration of characters. "Lineage" is also sometimes used loosely to mean "clade". WolfmanSF ( talk) 18:36, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Based on the comments above, and various other published works, I completely redid this article, specifically to try and discourage the "misuse" of the word "basal" to represent sister groups. I deleted most of the examples, and nearly all should be moved to the sister group article if they should even be kept at all. It is not clear to me what the correct usage should be other than talking about deep nodes (not taxa deriving from those nodes) but perhaps someone else could add this. Wrfrancis ( talk) 09:46, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
The new account is clear and helpful, but frankly the term "basal" appears in it as magnificently obscure and difficult; further, it is clear that some (many?) scientists have at times applied it very loosely if not "wrongly".
I think Peter coxhead's comment is key here: we as editors should analyse the literature and report on what is there, not on what we believe. If 80% of scientists think one thing and 20% another, then we should report both the majority and the minority views, making clear their relative frequency. If a term has multiple meanings in such different usages, it is a bit awkward in an article as this isn't a dictionary: we may need to include See alsos or otherwise cross-refer to related articles (such as on sister clades). On the choice of examples, it will be much the best if we can use examples published in the literature, so they can be cited directly. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 06:53, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
"basal character" OR "basal characteristic" OR "basal trait"
throws up large numbers of papers using such terms.In phylogenetics, the term basal can be correctly applied to clades of organisms, but not to lineages or to individual traits possessed by the organisms—although it may be misused in these ways in technical literature.It's simply a fact that "basal" is widely applied to mean or to relate to "possessing ancestral rather than derived characters", and we should not be saying flatly that this is a misuse: I might well agree with those who claim that it is, we shouldn't say this in an editorial voice in a Wikipedia article. Peter coxhead ( talk) 08:26, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I really do not like the direction this has gone. I felt like my redo was mostly objective, reflecting the usage and the criticism of that usage. Given that, I would STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST starting the article stating that a basal lineage is a sister group to the remaining diversity in that group. This is imprecise usage, and the fact that it is used in some papers does not justify the definition. As mentioned above, usage of terms is not always consistent, but the criticisms of such inconsistency have been presented in primary literature before. I would advise reverting to my version. Wrfrancis ( talk) 17:08, 3 February 2019 (UTC)