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Rooted and Unrooted Trees

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

A rooted tree identifies a single ancestral lineage all included organisms trace to; an unrooted tree shows relationships without identifying that ancestor.

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A rooted tree of life's three domains traces Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya to one shared origin point; an unrooted version omits that point.

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An unrooted tree still conveys relationships shown — it lacks only the ancestor, not all information.