The reduced cladistic consensus method offers a means of avoiding the lack of resolution frequently observed when large numbers of equally parsimonious trees are summarized in a strict component consensus tree. It does so by identifying relationships (in the form of n‐taxon statements) that are unambiguously supported by the parsimonious interpretation of the data. We apply the method to qualitative morphological character data for 70 genera from the clade containing the cassiduloid echinoids. A sample of 31,000 most parsimonious trees contains 21 basic reduced cladistic consensus trees. As these cannot be combined into any single highly resolved consensus for the majority of the taxa, the multiple most parsimonious trees do not differ solely in the placement of a small number of taxa. The homoplasy present in the morphological data prevents the determination of a robust cassiduloid phylogeny.
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Homoplasy and extinction: the phylogeny of cassidulid echinoids (Echinodermata)
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Oxford University Press (OUP)
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