1. A system of biological classification that groups organisms based on shared evolutionary ancestry and common descent, organizing them into nested hierarchies called clades.
Usage: scientific; biology; also called phylogenetic systematics

Examples

• Cladistics has revolutionized how biologists understand evolutionary relationships among species.
• Using cladistics, scientists discovered that birds are actually a type of dinosaur.
• The cladistics approach focuses on identifying shared derived characteristics to build evolutionary trees.
• Modern taxonomy increasingly relies on cladistics rather than traditional morphological classification.
• Cladistics uses molecular data and fossil evidence to reconstruct the history of life.