Could someone kindly explain me the difference between Phylogeny, Phylogenetic Tree, Evolutionary Trees, Phylotype, Clusters, OTU (Open Taxonomic Units). Or if possible please do suggest me a beginner's book on that said topics.
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Any evolutionary biology textbook should cover this, e.g. Futuyma's Evolution. To me, your question is too open-ended and broad, and it reads as unresearched homework. – fileunderwater Dec 08 '15 at 14:04
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Understanding Evolution is a free online introductory course of evolutionary biology that will probably answer these questions.
Wikipedia will also make a decent job at answering your questions.
Any introductory book to evolutionary biology would do it.
To answer your question
- phylogeny = phylogenetic tree = evolutionary tree: evolutionary relationship between lineages
- phylotype: An observed morphological similarity that is used to classify a group of organisms.
- OTU: An observed genetic similarity that is used to classify a group of organisms.
Both OTU and phylotype are often used for asexual lineages where the concept of species poorly apply. See more info on the concept of species here.
