Answers
a) These are the 6 species highlighted species, and the answer is no, they do not form a monophyletic group, they dispersed along different groups
b) Yes it is. We can know that because it is in the coronavirus phylogeny, it is inside this phylogeny
c) They are more closely related to 2012 MERS. You can know that by counting the number of nodes you require to go from one group to the other
d) This means one of the 2 strains of human coronavirus branched and created this more virulent strain, that would mean it would form a phylogenetic group with the human coronavirus, or in other words it is nested in this group, or in other words it is a sister species to human coronavirus in this phylogeny
e) Well, now that we know where was it born and who are the closely related strains, we can state that current outbreak was already in humans, since it was born from another human coronavirus that means this recent ancestor most likely was in a human, then while replicating it mutated and created this more virulent strain
f) Well, by knowing its closely related strains we can focus on fighting it according to this, if this strain was born form certain human coronavirus then it would be a good logic to fight just as we fight the human coronavirus, using what is effective against them
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