Sentence examples for a derived character from inspiring English sources

Who is to say what is an original ancestral character and what a derived character?

In comparing humans and apes, it can be said that an upright stance in humans is a derived character.

Species that share a derived character are likely to have had a common ancestor with that character, although there are many exceptions.

A derived character state is inferred to be a modified version of the primitive condition of that character, and to have arisen later in the evolution of the clade.

In doing so, independent character evolution statements are made that will hopefully settle on an unequivocal or unambiguous pattern of genealogical descent.4 Whenever more than one ingroup taxa shares a derived character, this represents a potential special homology (a possible synapomorphy).

We now recognize that a "rope-ladder" ventral nerve cord with segmental commissures joining the ganglia (masses of neural tissue that are arranged one pair per segment in arthropods) is a derived character of arthropods alone (Mayer and Harzsch 2007, 2008).

New and more extensive studies of the upper and lower limbs [8], [9], [10] together with new studies of the cranium [6], [11] show that the Liang Bua remains display a curious mosaic of (a) derived characters as in modern humans, (b) primitive characters as in apes and australopithecines, and (c) unique characters.

This cluster was also supported by a unique synapomorphy (a shared derived character) in the form of a conserved motif (Dh; where h is a hydrophobic residue) associated with the second strand (Fig. 1).

The acquisition of a novel gene from a distantly related taxon can be considered as a shared derived character that demarcates a group of organisms, as in the case of the spirochaete Phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase (PheRS).

A shared derived character is an evolutionary novelty unique to a particular clade and the acquisition of exogenous genetic material through HGT establishes the recipient and its descendants as a monophyletic group [ 29].

For me, the TT coupling cannot be used as a positive trait to group Archaea and Bacteria, because we don't know if the TT coupling is a convergent or a homologous trait, and, in the latter case, if the TT coupling is an ancestral or a shared derived character.