Lesson Overview Lesson Overview Finding Order in Diversity Ch. 18 Classification 18.1 Finding Order in Diversity

Lesson Overview Finding Order in Diversity

Ch. 18 Classification

18.1 Finding Order in Diversity


THINK ABOUT IT

Scientists have been trying to identify, name, and find order in the diversity of life for a long time. The first scientific system for naming and grouping organisms was set up long before Darwin.

In recent decades, biologists have been completing a changeover from that older system of names and classification to a new strategy based on evolutionary theory.


Assigning Scientific Names

The first step in understanding and studying diversity is to describe and name each species.

By using a scientific name, biologists can be sure that they are discussing the same organism. Common names can be confusing because they vary among languages and from place to place.

For example, the names cougar, puma, panther, and mountain lion can all be used to indicate the same animal— Felis Concolor.


Assigning Scientific Names

In the eighteenth century, European scientists agreed to assign Latin or Greek names to each species. Early scientific names often used long phrases to describe species in great detail.

For example, the English translation of the scientific name of a tree might be “Oak with deeply divided leaves that have no hairs on their undersides and no teeth around their edges.”

It was also difficult to standardize names because different scientists focused on different characteristics


Binomial Nomenclature

In the 1730s, Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus developed a two-word naming system called binomial nomenclature.

The scientific name usually is Latin. It is written in italics. The first word begins with a capital letter, and the second word is lowercased.


Copyright Pearson Prentice Hall

The first part of the name is the genus to which the organism belongs. A genus is a group of closely related species. The genus name is capitalized.

The second part of the name is unique to each species within the genus. This part of the name often describes an important trait or where the organism lives. The species name is lowercased.

Ursus arctos

(grizzly bear)

Ursus americanus

(black bear)


Classifying Species into Larger Groups

In addition to naming organisms, biologists try to organize, or classify, living and fossil species into larger groups that have biological meaning. Biologists often refer to these groups as taxa (singular: taxon).

The science of naming and grouping organisms is called systematics. Previously, it was referred to as taxonomy.


Linnaean Classification System

Linnaeus also developed a classification system that organized species into a hierarchy, or ranking.

In deciding how to place organisms into larger groups, Linnaeus grouped species according to anatomical similarities and differences.


Seven Levels

Linnaeus identified just four levels in his original classification system.

Over time, Linnaeus’s original classification system would expand to include seven taxa: species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, and kingdom.



Species and genus are the two smallest categories.

Grizzly bear

Black bear



Grizzly bear

Black bear

Giant panda

Genera that share many characteristics are grouped in a larger category, the family.



Red fox

Grizzly bear

Black bear

Giant panda

An order is a broad category composed of similar families.

This order also contains the families Canidae (dogs) and Felidae (cats).



Abert squirrel

Class Mammalia

Black bear

Giant panda

Grizzly bear

Red fox

The next larger category, the class, is composed of similar orders.

All mammals are warm-blooded, have body hair, and produce milk for their young.



PHYLUM Chordata

Black bear

Giant panda

Grizzly bear

Red fox

Abert squirrel

Coral snake

Several different classes make up a phylum.



KINGDOM Animalia

Black bear

Giant panda

Grizzly bear

Red fox

Sea star

Abert squirrel

Coral snake

The kingdom is the largest and most inclusive of Linnaeus's taxonomic categories.


Problems With Traditional Classification

In a way, members of a species determine which organisms belong to that species by deciding with whom they mate and produce fertile offspring.

Ranks above the level of species, however, are determined by researchers who decide how to define and describe genera, families, orders, classes, phyla, and kingdoms.

Linnaeus grouped organisms into larger taxa according to overall similarities and differences. But which similarities and differences are the most important?


Problems With Traditional Classification

Modern classification schemes look beyond overall similarities and differences and group organisms based on evolutionary relationships.

Documents

Lesson Overview Lesson Overview Finding Order in Diversity Ch. 18 Classification 18.1 Finding Order in Diversity