Question

The tree includes the most recent common ancestor of all living species of bears (branch point 1). what does this tell you about this phylogenetic tree? the tree includes the most recent common ancestor of all living species of bears (branch point 1). what does this tell you about this phylogenetic tree? this phylogenetic tree is rooted. the ursidae family is a paraphyletic group. the ursidae family is a polyphyletic group. this phylogenetic tree contains homoplasies.

Answer 1

If we take a look at the phylogenetic tree of bears presented in the picture above, we can see that the branch number one is the common ancestor to all living bear species, which means that the whole group has a uniform origin. and the phylogenetic tree has a root.
Therefore, the group is monophyletic, not polyphyletic ( meaning that the whole group has the same origin) and not paraphyletic ( there is no group that has been excluded from the tree).