Strengths and weaknesses of molecular phylogenetic analysis

Abstract

 Molecular phylogeny is one of the important methods for understanding the pattern and process of biological evolution independently of morphological data. Molecular phylogenetic analysis, however, provides no sufficient information on phylogenetical changes of morphology throughout the geological time. It is generally difficult to select the most optimum tree among various kinds of molecular phylogenetic trees described with a variety of techniques, and is also difficult to demonstrate directly the phylogenetic relation between ancestors and descendants simply in molecular phylogenetic analysis. Therefore, the stratigraphical information and morphological one are indispensable for the evolutional comprehension of morphological changes.