Phylogenetic signal

Phylogenetic signal is the tendency of closely related species to resemble each other more than they resemble species chosen at random from the same evolutionary tree. It gives researchers a way to measure how much of a trait's similarity across species can be explained by shared ancestry rather than chance. A trait shaped mainly by common descent shows a strong phylogenetic signal, while a trait shaped mainly by convergent evolution, where unrelated species independently evolve similar features, shows a weaker one. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/