Phylogenetics and the future of helminth systematics.

Phylogenetic systematics is a relatively new formal technique that increases the precision with which one can make direct estimates of the history of phylogenetic descent. These estimates are made in the form of phylogenetic trees, or cladograms. Cladograms may be converted directly into classifications or they may be used to test various hypotheses about the evolutionary process. More than 20 phylogenetic analyses of helminth groups have been published already, and these have been used to investigate evolutionary questions in developmental biology, biogeography, speciation, coevolution, and evolutionary ecology.