Final answer:
Taxonomy is the naming and hierarchical grouping of organisms, while systematics incorporates evolutionary relationships into this framework. Phylogeny represents the evolutionary history, and a phylogenetic tree is a visual representation of these relationships, updated with new discoveries.
Step-by-step explanation:
The difference between taxonomy, phylogeny, and systematics lies in their respective approaches and objectives in understanding biological diversity. Taxonomy is the discipline of naming and grouping organisms into a hierarchical structure that includes several levels from domain to species. The classification system, also known as the Linnaean system, progresses through three large categories called domains (Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya) and continues to kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.
Systematics goes beyond taxonomy by encompassing the evolutionary relationships among organisms. It uses data from various fields, such as molecular genetics and morphology, to construct an organism's phylogeny, which is the evolutionary history and relationships among a group of species. Systematics is therefore a comprehensive framework that incorporates taxonomy and helps in understanding the tree of life.
A phylogenetic tree visually represents the evolutionary relationships and is composed of branches, nodes, and leaves, each signifying a point of divergence in the evolutionary path of species. These trees are dynamic and are updated as new data are discovered. The purpose of a phylogenetic tree is to hypothesize the evolutionary pathways and relationships among different organisms.