Question

Why are DNA sequences (or amino acid sequences encoded in genes ) such powerful characters for use in cladistics?                                      A.)because each nucleotide in the sequence is a separate character, yielding millions of characters.                                                                        B.)DNA is the only rigorous way in which to assess evolutionary relatedness.                                C.)It yields inherently more robust characters.

Answer 1

The best answer here would be (C) it yields inherently more robust characters.

The Dna or RNA sequencing help a lot. As the dna is the main source of all the inheritable variations taken place in the anscestry of an organism. If dna is changed , the forming protein and peptides etc will change thus changing the genotype. So, dna sequencing is the most impt and provide the most clear picture of the phylogenetic relatedness, depending on the amount of change in the dna sequence of 2 organisms. Other characters like morphological can be misleading also, depending on the similar or different environmental conditions in which the organisms might be living , and then easily reversible also as compared to dna.