Beta Taxonomy: Grouping Species

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Beta Taxonomy Grouping Species

• BIOL 100
• 8 September 2009

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Fig 19.4 p. 401
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Type Taxa

• One designated type species per genus
• One type genus per family with same word root
• Exs Ursus in Ursidae (bears)
• Felis in Felidae (cats)
• Coluber in Colubridae (nonvenomous snakes)
• Serve as taxonomic anchors as changes in taxonomy
  are proposed

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Obligate and Non-obligate Ranks

• Obligate ranks KPCOFGS
• Non-obligate ranks (examples)
• Suborder one or more (but not all) of the
  families that comprise an order
• Superfamily one or more families may be part
  of a suborder

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Standardized Endings for Animals

• Order -iformes (birds and fish only)
• Superfamily -oidea
• Family -idae
• Subfamily -inae
• Tribe -ini

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Standardized Endings for Plants

• Phylum -phyta
• Class -dones (or opsida)
• Order -ales
• Family -aceae

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Fig 19.4 p. 401
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HANDOUTMeylan 1987
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Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)

• Origin of Species (1859) included predictions
  about reconstruction of evolutionary history
  (phylogeny)
• "Our classifications will come to be, as far as
  they can be so made, genealogies and will then
  truly give what may be called the plan of
  creation. The rules for classifying will no
  doubt become simpler when we have a definite
  object in view."

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HANDOUTThe Only Illustration in Origin of
Species (1859)
Sketch in private notebook, 1837
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HANDOUTErnst Haeckels 1883 Tree of Life
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Interpreting a Tree

• Branching points are inferred common ancestors
• Tips are species living today
• Proximity of tips is not important

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Evolution of Kingdoms in Classification

• Carolus Linnaeus (1758) Plantae
• Animalia
• Ernst Haeckel (1866) added Protista for all
  single-celled organisms (bacteria, protozoans,
  many algae)

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Evolution of Kingdoms in Classification

• Herbert Copeland (1930s-1950s)
• Added Monera for prokaryotes (bacteria)
• Restricted Plantae and Animalia to organisms with
  tissue differentiation
• Used Protoctista for all other eukaryotes (some
  single-celled, some multicelled without tissue
  differentiation)
• Robert Whittaker (1969) Monera, Protista
  (unicellular algae and protozoans), Fungi,
  Animalia, Plantae

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Evolution of Kingdoms in Classification

• Carl Woese et al. (1990) six kingdoms in three
  domains
• Two groups of bacteria and the eukaryotes

Fig. 1.5 p. 10