Family (biology)

Family (Latin: familia, plural familiae) is

one of the eight major hierarchical
taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy;
it is classified between order and genus.
A family may be divided into subfamilies,
which are intermediate ranks between
the ranks of family and genus. The
official family names are Latin in origin;
however, popular names are often used:
for example, walnut trees and hickory
trees belong to the family Juglandaceae,
but that family is commonly referred to
as being the "walnut family".

The hierarchy of biological classification's eight

major taxonomic ranks. An order contains one or
more families. Intermediate minor rankings are not
shown.

What belongs to a family—or if a

described family should be recognized at
all—are proposed and determined by
practicing taxonomists. There are no
hard rules for describing or recognizing a
family. Taxonomists often take different
positions about descriptions, and there
may be no broad consensus across the
scientific community for some time. The
publishing of new data and opinions
often enables adjustments and
consensus.

Nomenclature
The naming of families is codified by
various international bodies using the
following suffixes:
 In fungal, algal, and botanical
nomenclature, the family names of
plants, fungi, and algae end with the
suffix "-aceae", with the exception of a
small number of historic but widely
used names including Compositae and
Gramineae.[1][2]
In zoological nomenclature, the family
names of animals end with the suffix "-
idae".[3]

History
The taxonomic term familia was first
used by French botanist Pierre Magnol in
his Prodromus historiae generalis
plantarum, in quo familiae plantarum per
tabulas disponuntur (1689) where he
called the seventy-six groups of plants he
recognised in his tables families
(familiae). The concept of rank at that
time was not yet settled, and in the
preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke
of uniting his families into larger genera,
which is far from how the term is used
today.

Carl Linnaeus used the word familia in

his Philosophia botanica (1751) to denote
major groups of plants: trees, herbs,
ferns, palms, and so on. He used this
term only in the morphological section of
the book, discussing the vegetative and
generative organs of plants.
Subsequently, in French botanical
publications, from Michel Adanson's
Familles naturelles des plantes (1763)
and until the end of the 19th century, the
word famille was used as a French
equivalent of the Latin ordo (or ordo
naturalis).

In zoology, the family as a rank

intermediate between order and genus
was introduced by Pierre André Latreille
in his Précis des caractères génériques
des insectes, disposés dans un ordre
naturel (1796). He used families (some
of them were not named) in some but not
in all his orders of "insects" (which then
included all arthropods).
In nineteenth-century works such as the
Prodromus of Augustin Pyramus de
Candolle and the Genera Plantarum of
George Bentham and Joseph Dalton
Hooker this word ordo was used for what
now is given the rank of family.

Uses
Families can be used for evolutionary,
palaeontological and genetic studies
because they are more stable than lower
taxonomic levels such as genera and
species.[4][5]

See also
 Systematics, the study of the diversity
of life
Cladistics, the classification of
organisms by their order of branching
in an evolutionary tree
Phylogenetics, the study of
evolutionary relatedness among
various groups of organisms
Taxonomy
Virus classification
List of Anuran families
List of Testudines families
List of fish families
List of families of spiders

References
1. Barnhart 1895.
2. ICN 2012, Section 2. Names of
families and subfamilies, tribes and
subtribes Article 18 .
3. International Commission on
Zoological Nomenclature (1999).
"Article 29.2. Suffixes for family-
group names" . International Code of
Zoological Nomenclature
(Fourth ed.). International Trust for
Zoological Nomenclature, XXIX.
p. 306. Archived from the original
on 9 November 2004. [1]
4. Sarda Sahney, Michael J. Benton &
Paul A. Ferry (2010). "Links between
global taxonomic diversity,
 ecological diversity and the
expansion of vertebrates on land" .
Biology Letters. 6 (4): 544–547.
doi:10.1098/rsbl.2009.1024 .
PMC 2936204 . PMID 20106856 .
5. Sarda Sahney & Michael J. Benton
(2008). "Recovery from the most
profound mass extinction of all
time" . Proceedings of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences. 275
(1636): 759–765.
doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1370 .
PMC 2596898 . PMID 18198148 .

Bibliography
Barnhart, John Hendley (15 January 1895).
"Family Nomenclature". Bulletin of the
Torrey Botanical Club. 22 (1): 1–25.
doi:10.2307/2485402 . JSTOR 2485402 .
Bullock, A. A. (January 1958). "Indicis
Nominum Familiarum Angiospermarum
Prodromus". Taxon. 7 (1): 1–35.
doi:10.2307/1216226 . JSTOR 1216226 .
Bullock, A. A. (August 1958). "Indicis
Nominum Familiarum Angiospermarum
Prodromus: Additamenta et Corrigenda I".
Taxon. 7 (6): 158–163.
doi:10.2307/1217503 . JSTOR 1217503 .
ICN (2012). "International Code of
Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants" .
Bratislava: International Association for
Plant Taxonomy. Retrieved 17 January
2016.
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