Synapomorphies molecular

Once the main clades within the Brachytheciaceae had become more or less stabilized, our main goal was to elucidate the position of taxa not included or not well represented in the previous analyses, and also to find additional arguments for generic and subfamilial placement of some particular taxa. Three methods are involved here (1) evaluation of the molecular synapomorphies in POY alignment, i.e., characteristic indel events and substitutions (2) analysis of the secondary structure of the tmL intron and (3) phylogenetic analysis of a reduced dataset from previous analyses, with some additional taxa. 

Paleontology of the past is revived in molecular systematics of the present, in its search for ancestors and centers of origin. The revival ignores, or retreats from, the cladistic reform of paleontology of the 1970s, with historical roots in the work of Louis Dollo (1857-1931) and fossil Inngfishes. The subsequent development of cladistics has been arrested, too, by compnter implementations of character optimization and the ideology of total evidence, which reflects a phenetic rather than cladistic objective the overall similarity of synapomorphy. 

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