 the branch of biology that

groups and names organisms

based on their different
characteristics
 a useful tool – in distinguishing
poisonous organisms from not
 Important to the economy- as
new sources of lumber,
medicines

Taxonomists- biologists
who study taxonomy
2
Systematics

• the classification of
organisms in terms of their
natural relationships
• More than 200 years ago,
organisms grouped
according to similarities.
• Modern biologists consider
not only visible similarities,
but also similarities in
embryos, chromosomes,
proteins, and DNA

3
 Eastern world- Shen Nung,
Emperor of China around
3000 BC- the legendary
emperor and the Father of
Chinese medicine and is
believed to have
introduced acupuncture
 1500 BC medicinal plants
were illustrated on wall
paintings in Egypt
 Greeks and Romans
 Hippocrates (460-377 BC) –
enumerated types of animals, but there
is no useful classification in the
surviving fragments of their work
 Aristotle (384-322 BC) – was the father
of biological classification; devoted
himself in the study of zoology esp.
marine organisms;
 -plants classified as herbs, shrubs,
Hippocrates
trees.
 -”animals can be characterized
according to their way of living, their
actions, their habits, and their bodily
parts.”
 Aristotle’s thinking dominated animal
classification for the next 2000 yrs.
Nevertheless he did not attempt to
supply an orderly, fully consistent
Aristotle classification of animals.
 Theophrastus (370-285 B.C.),
pupil of Aristotle, created first
“artificial” plant groupings
based on growth form (De
Theophrastus
Historia Plantarum-480 species)
 Dioscorides (40-90 AD) wrote
treatise on medicinal plants (De
Materia Medica-600 species)-
used in Medicine until 16th
century
 Plinius- (23-79AD) –Naturalis
Historia, a work of 160 volumes-
description of several plants
and Latin names; Father of
Botanical Latin
 Greeks and Romans expanded
knowledge to other plant life Dioscorides Plinius
 Scientific stagnation
during Dark/Middle Hepatica nobilis
Ages
 Development of the
“Doctrine of
Signatures”
 suggested that God
marked objects a sign
of their purpose;
“signatures”
 Renaissance brought Jakob Bohme,
new studies of plants Doctrine of
Signatures
by “herbalists”
 Early Plant taxonomists
Plant classification experienced a great flowering
in the period from Caesalpino (1519-1603) to
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
- Caesalpino (1519-1603) – “the Caesalpino
first taxonomist”; wrote De
plantis (1583) containing 1500
species; his classification was
based on growth habit together
with fruit and seed form as was
that of Theophrastus. -2 Swiss Bros. Bauhin (1541-1631;
1560-1624) –wrote Pinax Theatri
Botanici (1623) – Pinax means
register, and work is a listing of 6000
species; they worked with synonyms
and recognized genera and species
Gaspard Bauhin Johann Bauhin as a major taxonomic levels
 Early Plant taxonomists
-John Ray (1627-1705)- established
species as the ultimate unit of taxonomy;
published Methodus Plantarum Nova
(1682) which contained 18000 plant
species.

John Ray
-Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708)- constructed a
botanical classification that came to rule botanical
taxonomy until the time of Linnaeus; published
Institutiones Rei Herbariae with 9000 species were listed
in 698 genera; his plant classification was based on
floral characters; provide clear concept of genus for
Joseph Pitton de
Tournefort-
plants.
 Types of Classification
Downward Classification (logical/dichotomy division)
a large initial sample is step-wise divided by logical division
(dichotomy) into smaller and smaller groups until all items are
placed in a class.
Ex: animals---with or without blood, animals with blood ---hairy or
not hairy, and so forth.
Dominated until the end of 18th century

-17th -18th century -

Animal Taxonomy made
little conceptual progress
thru Willughby(1635-
1672), on birds; Reaumur
(1683-1757) on insects
 Types of Classification
Upward classification
o Arrangement of entities into classes based on overall
(comprehensive) similarity
o Assembling species by inspection into groups of similar or
related species and forming a hierarchy of higher taxa by
again grouping similar taxa of the next lower rank
•Buffon (1749) : Histoire naturelle: “It
would seem to me that the only way to
design an instructive and natural method
is to group together things that resemble
each other and to separate things that
differ from each other.”
•This thought was systematically
applied by the botanist Adanson (1763)
and was practiced by nearly all post-
Linnaean zoologists, who delimited taxa
by inspection and through an evaluation
of numerous characters.
 Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778)
– Global flora Species
Plantarum 1753 and Systema
Naturae 1758 global fauna
 -He introduced in these books
a binary form of species
names called “trivial names”
for both plants and animals.
 -for each species he created
an epithet that could be used
together with the genus name
 Carolus Linnaeus (1707-
1778) established uniform
naming system (1753+,
Species Plantarum)
 Latinized binomial names
descriptive of traits, ecology
or geography
 Utilitarian, widely used
 A system of all living things
and minerals 1735- Systema
Naturae.
 Artificial classification based
on the sexual system;
stamens and pistils based on
number of flower parts
Porter (1967)
Carolus Linnaeus
• Swedish naturalist who
proposed the binomial
nomenclature system to
identify species still used
today
• Selected physical
characteristics based on
close relationships of
organisms
• Plants: based on reproductive structures
• Animals: based on traits/characteristics

14
 Scientific Name:
1) Genus: 1st word: consist of closely related species
2) Species: 2nd word: consist of description of the species.
 Each category represents a level of grouping from larger,
more general to smaller, more specific categories

Rules: Examples:
1) Genus is always capitalized & Homo sapiens sapiens
is written first Canis familiaris
2) Species is always written in Pithecophaga jefferyi Ogilvie-Grant, 1896
lowercase & written after the
genus Felis tigerus
3) Both are either italicized or F. leo
underlined!!! F. domestica
Felis sp.
Felis spp.
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Scientific & Common Names
Many organisms have common
names that can be misleading.
− do not tell you how organisms
are related or classified
− a sea horse is a fish, not a
horse
− it is even more confusing
when a species has more
than one common name.
All newly discovered species are
given Latin names.

16
 A key made up of sets of numbered statements, each set deals
with a single characteristic of an organism, such as leaf shape or
arrangement
Test Yourself

Small and yellow 25 sentimo

Large size 1-inch diameter 5 piso

Small and silver 1 piso

Large size 1-inch diameter 10 piso
− Species-smallest unit of
classification, a group of
organisms that is isolated
reproductively from similar
groups
− Genus- a group of related
species
− Family- a group of related
genus
− Order- a group of related
families
− Class- a group of related
orders
− Phylum or Division- a group
of related class
− Kingdom- a group of related
phyla

18
 Linnaeus also introduced a system
• For grouping species in increasingly broad
categories
Species Panthera pardus

Panthera
Genus

Felidae
Family

Carnivora
Order

Mammalia
Class

Chordata
Phylum

Animalia
Animalia
Kingdom

Eukarya
Eukarya
Domain
 Successors to Linnaeus’ System
Successors of Linnaeus expanded
cataloging of plants, as new ones
were found and other areas of the
globe were explored.
 Antoine-Laurent De Jussieu (1748-
1836) created extensive artificial
scheme relying on ovary
placement, stamen fusion, etc.
(1789, Genera Plantarum
Secundum Ordines Naturales
Disposita)
 He placed monocots first,
because they were simplest
 He divided plants into
acotyledons, monocotyledons,
and dicotyledons and established
the family rank in between the
ranks “genus” and “class”
 De Jussieu’s major groups

Porter (1967)
Successors to Linnaeus’ System
“Artificial” classification systems
based on a small number of
features (shape/form)
 Subsequent botanists strived to
create “natural” classification
schemes using many features
“Natural” classification systems
based on multiple features
(anatomy, physiology, biochemistry,
reproduction, cytology, etc.)
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-
1829)
 launched an evolutionary theory
including inheritance of acquired
characters: “Lamarckism”
Rules for Nomenclature
 Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841)-
made 1st attempts to create rules for botanical
taxonomy in Theory elementaire de la
botanique 1813
 He stated that published names should
have priority according to the date of
publication, starting with Linnaeus
 Congress on Paris: 100 botanist adopted the
rules in a book of Alphons de Candolle
(1806-1873), Lois de nomenclature adoptee
from 1867
 During the yrs. of 1891 to 1898 German
botanist Otto Kuntze (1843-1907) published a
controversial work Revisio generum
Plantarum, in which he applied Candolle’s
laws from 1867 rigidly.
 He changed 1000 generic names and
30,000 species names.
 Nomina conservanda – a list made of well –
established names; conserved names
 1907 – American botanists created a code
of their own where they introduced type
specimens and allowed tautonyms
(identical names in a species name, now
allowed in zoology, e.g. Grus grus)
 1935 – European and American codes
merge into one international code of
botanical nomenclature (IBCN)
 Synonyms- Bufo
marinus; Rhinella
marina
 Homonyms- a name
for a taxon that is
identical in spelling
to another such
name, that belongs to
a different taxon.
 Rules for Nomenclature
 In 1842 Hugh Edwin Strickland
(1811-1853) – elaborated the 1st
nomenclatural laws for zoology;
“Strickland Code”-was accepted
among British and American
zoologists within 3 yrs.
 1881- geological international
congress in Bologna modified the
code to make it applicable into
fossils; during the next 5 yrs. a
number of codes were suggested
 1892- International Congress in
Moscow –first accepted an
international code of zoological
nomenclature
 1905 a modified code was
published
 Linking Classification and Phylogeny
 Systematists depict evolutionary relationships
• In branching phylogenetic trees

Species
Panthera Mephitis Lutra lutra Canis Canis
pardus mephitis (European familiaris lupus
(leopard)(striped skunk) otter) (domestic dog) (wolf)
Genus

Panthera Mephitis Lutra Canis

Family

Felidae Mustelidae Canidae

Order

Carnivora
 Each branch point
• Represents the divergence of two species

Leopard Domestic cat

Common ancestor
Phylogenetic Classification: Models

A classification system that shows the evolutionary

history and relationships of species
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 Determining evolutionary
relationships
1. Structural Similarities
• Plant taxonomists use structural evidence to
classify dandelions and sunflowers under family,
Asteraceae by similarity in flower and fruit
structures. Evolutionary history then is inferred.

2. Geographical Distribution

Crushing Probing
Galapagos Bills Bills
Finches
Parrot
Bills

Graspin
g Bills
Ancestral
Species
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 Determining evolutionary
relationships

• Both the number and structure of

chromosomes, as seen during mitosis and
meiosis, provide evidence about
relationships among species.
– cauliflower, cabbage, kale, and broccoli
look different but have chromosomes that
are almost identical in structure.

• Comparing DNA sequences of organisms

• DNA barcoding- the use of short genetic markers (conserved DNA
sequences) for species ID.
 Charles Darwin
(1809-1882) provided concepts of
evolutionary change through time
 Subsequent botanists
incorporated these into
classifications
 A different way to view taxa
groupings on an evolutionary tree
 Natural selection- certain
members of a population carry
variation that is beneficial to the
survival of the species, this
variation will then be passed on
from generation to generation as
the species adapt to the
underlying environmental
condition.
 Forerunners of Phylogenetic
 Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) Systems
and August Wilhelm Eichler
(1839-1878) started
construction of evolutionary
trees
 Haeckel established the term
“phylogeny, phylum, ecology,
Protista”
 20th century was dominated
by extended phenetics
(looking for similarities and
differences of phenotypes to
create systematic
relationship)
 Willi Hennig (1913-1976) –
founded the cladistic era in 1966
by stating similarities grouping
species (synapomorphies)
should be used in classification
and that taxa should include all
descendants from one single
ancestor (the rule of monophyly).
 The new method on systematics
called cladistics was
controversial and took 20 yrs.
before it started to become
established.
 Phylocode
Kevin de Queiroz and Jacques Gauthier in 1990’s laid
theoretical foundation to a new nomenclatural code for
all organisms, the Phylocode.
 1998- a meeting in Harvard drew out the
lines for a phylocode and the first draft that
was published on the web in 2000.
 Phylocode –reflects a philosophical shift
from naming species and subsequently
classifying them to naming both species and
clades
 regulates phylogenetic nomenclature by
providing rules for how to decide which
associations of names and definitions will be
considered established, which of those will
be considered homonyms or synonyms, and
which one of a set of synonyms or
homonyms will be considered accepted
(generally the one registered first).