Question

How do homoplasy and horizontal gene transfer affect in phylogenetic tree construction?

Answer 1

Explanation:

A single trunk on a phylogenetic tree represents a common ancestor and the branches represent the divergence of species from this ancestor. Horizontal gene transfer is the transfer of genes between unrelated species and, as such, complicates the simple tree model.

A phylogeny, or evolutionary tree, represents the evolutionary relationships among a set of organisms or groups of organisms, called taxa (singular: taxon). The tips of the tree represent groups of descendent taxa (often species) and the nodes on the tree represent the common ancestors of those descendants.