12/02/2023

DEVELOPMENT OF
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS
Malabrigo (2016)

Instructor: KSTindoy

CLASSIFICATION
1. Definition and Concepts of Classification

◼Placement of organisms and objects into groups and categories for a clear understanding,
proper study and effective organization.
◼Arrangement of group of organisms [plants] with particular circumscription by rank and
position according to artificial criteria, phenetic similarities, or phylogenetic relationships
(Radford, 1986)

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• 1. Classification is based on
character correlations and
discontinuities of variation, which
are necessary for characterizations
and delimitations of taxa.

• 2. Classification is the the

ordering of organisms into a
hierarchy of taxa with the
species being the fundamental
basic unit, rank or category.

• 3. Classification results in an
orderly arrangement of system
designed to express
interrelationships in a particular
or natural way

• 4. Classification provides a
system for efficient and
effective information storage

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• 5. NO CHARACTER perse, is more

important than another in
classification, but one character
may be more significant within
group

• 6. THE LIMITS of taxon

cannot usually be defined
quantitatively or qualitatively
by a single characteristic

• 7. ASSIGNMENTS of natural
populations or of population
systems to taxa and hierarchical
arrangements of those involve
judgement

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Development
of Classification
• POST - LINNAEN
PERIOD 03 (1760-1880)

• LINNAEN PERIOD 02 (1735-1760)

• PRE-LINNAEN PERIOD (300 BC – 1700)

01 use of habit and important to man as characters

DEVELOPMENT OF CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS

Malabrigo (2016)

PRE-LINNAEN PERIOD (300 BC – 1700)

•use of habit and important to man as characters

ANCIENT CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS

•classification based on habit

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Pre-linnaen period
ANCIENT CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

• ARISTOTLE • THEOPHRASTUS • DIOSCORIDES

• established the earliest
classification scheme
• wrote extensively on plants
and animals
• classified plants into trees,
• separated medicinal herbs
• was first to write down a
from those used in making
classification in permanent
perfumes
and logical form in his De
• wrote De Materia Medica
Historia Plantarum where he wrote 600 kinds of
plants
shrubs, undershrubs, etc

Pre-linnaen period
THE HERBALIST

• O. Brunfels (1530) • J. Bock (1539) • M. de L’Obel (1570)

• motivated by medicinal/ commercial

considerations

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PRE-LINNAEN PERIOD
MECHANICAL CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS

• ANDREA CAESALPINO • CASPAR BAUHIN

◼ was called the first plant taxonomist
◼ first to classify plants primarily according to structural
characteristics
◼ Wrote De Plantis (classified about 1500 species)
◼ recognized distinction between genera and species as
major taxonomic levels;
◼ wrote Pinax Theatri Botanici listing 6000 plant species

LINNAEN PERIOD
SYSTEMA NATURAE
✓was an important publication that introduced
the binomial system of nomenclature

Simplification and standardization of taxonomic

names:

Physalis annua ramosissima, ramis angulosis

glabris, foliis dentato-serratis was transformed
to Physalis angulata

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LINNAEAN PERIOD
CAROLUS LINNAEUS
(1707-1778)
✓founder of modern taxonomy
✓ developed formal rules that provided
consistency for a two-name system in
common use (binomial system of
nomenclature)

Genera Plantarum (1737)

Species Plantarum (1753) codification of

European folk taxonomies; 1350 genera and
descriptions of 8550 species

POST-LINNAEN PERIOD
NATURAL SYSTEMS

• M. ADANSON • J. LINDLEY
◼ a French that rejected artificial classifications ◼ published first comprehensive natural system in
English
◼ emphasized equal weighing of characters
◼ Grand father of Numerical Taxonomy

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POST-LINNAEN PERIOD
NATURAL SYSTEMS

• S.L. ENDLICHER • G. BENTHAM and J.D. HOOKER

◼produced Genera Plantarum
◼which separated the Thallophyta from the
higher plants
◼produced Genera Plantarum
◼dealing only with seed plants and described
200 families and 7569 genera

Post - LINNAEN
PERIOD
PHYLOGENETIC SYSTEMS
✓attempted to integrate evolutionary history
to natural systems
✓arranged plant groups according to their
routes of descent

A.W. EICHLER
proposed the first phylogenetic system of classification for
plants in the third edition of his Syllabus de
Vorlesungeuber Specielle und Medicinish –
Pharmaceutische Botanik

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TRADITIONAL AND MODERN

APPROACHES TO Classification
• Malabrigo (2016)

• UTILITARIAN - people based

classification based on how they are
used; the most conventional and
perhaps the simplest way to make
demarcations among organisms

• ARTIFICIAL OR ANALYTIC
classification is based on a
number of characters so that
those that are likely to be
related share common
morphological traits

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• PHYLETIC OR EVOLUTIONARY - rose after

the publication of Darwin’s Theory of
Evolution that made biologists realize that
the reason taxonomic groups shared
certain traits was because those groups
have evolutionary relationships

• PHYLOGENETIC - classification is
based from cladistic theory and
the construction of phylogenies,
the patterns of lineage branching
produced by the true evolutionary
history of the organisms

FIVE BASIC 1 The relationships that provide the cohesion of living

and extinct organisms are genealogical relationships.

IDEAS THAT 2
Such relationships exist for individuals within
populations, populations within species, and

BEGAN THE
between species themselves

All other types of relationships have maximum

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SYSTEMATICS
relevance when understood within the context of
genealogical descent

REVOLUTION 4
The genealogical descent among species may be
recovered by searching for particular characters that
document these relationships
Of the many possible ways to classify organisms,
the best general reference system is one that
5 exactly reflects the genealogical relationships of
the species classified

Wiley and Lieberman (2011)

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THE FUTURE STARTS TODAY, NOT TOMORROW.

THANK YOU!
• ANY QUESTIONS?

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