Animal diversity and their Scientific Nomenclature

Taxonomy : Taxonomy Scientific names

Slide 2 : Taxonomy is the science of grouping and naming organisms. Classification the grouping of information or objects based on similarities.

Slide 3 : Devil Cat

Slide 4 : Ghost Cat

Slide 5 : Mountain Lion

Slide 6 : Screaming Cat

Slide 7 : Puma

Slide 8 : Florida Panther

Slide 9 : Cougar

Slide 10 : There are at least 50 common names for the animal shown on the previous 7 slides. Common names vary according to region. Soooo……why use a scientific name?

Slide 11 : Phylogeny, the evolutionary history of an organism, is the cornerstone of a branch of biology called systematic taxonomy. Systematics, as systematic taxonomy is commonly called, is the study of the evolution of biological diversity.

Slide 12 : Why use a dead language? We only know about a fraction of the organisms that exist or have existed on Earth. Taxonomists give a unique scientific name to each species they know about whether it’s alive today or extinct. The scientific name comes from one of two “dead” languages – Latin or ancient Greek.

Aristotle : Aristotle Plant or animal? If an animal, does it Fly Swim Crawl Simple classifications Used common names

Carolus Linnaeus : Carolus Linnaeus Described organisms with two word names, instead of polynomials Developed binomial nomenclature First word = genus name Second word = species name

Taxonomic hierarchy : Taxonomic hierarchy Names organisms and their relationships from very broad to very specific

Why is taxonomy useful? : Why is taxonomy useful? Helps prevent confusion among scientists Helps to show how organisms are related Can be used to reconstruct phylogenies – evolutionary histories – of an organism or group

All organisms classified in a hierarchy : All organisms classified in a hierarchy Kingdom (broadest) Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species (most specific)

What is a species anyway? : What is a species anyway? Biological species concept A group of actually or potentially breeding natural groups that are reproductively isolated from other groups. Ernst Mayr, 1924 BSC’s problems Hybrids Sterile offspring of two different species Asexual organisms

Diversity in living beings : Diversity in living beings

Modern systems : Modern systems Linnaean Linnaean taxonomy Carolus Linnaeus' great work, the Systema Naturae (1st ed. 1735), ran through twelve editions during his lifetime. In this work, nature was divided into three kingdoms: mineral, vegetable and animal. Linnaeus used five ranks: class, order, genus, species, and variety. He abandoned long descriptive names of classes and orders and two-word generic names (e. g. Bursa pastoris) still used by his immediate predecessors (Rivinus and Pitton de Tournefort) and replaced them with single-word names, provided genera with detailed diagnoses (characteres naturales), and reduced numerous varieties to their species, thus saving botany from the chaos of new forms produced by horticulturalists. ITIS, the integrated taxonomic information system, is a US based agency charged with creating a database of valid and consistent species names and classification, in order to aid ecosystem management and conservation.

Father of taxonomy : Father of taxonomy Linnaeus is best known for his introduction of the method still used to formulate the scientific name of every species. Before Linnaeus, long many-worded names (composed of a generic name and a differentia specifica) had been used, but as these names gave a description of the species, they were not fixed. In his Philosophia Botanica (1751) Linnaeus took every effort to improve the composition and reduce the length of the many-worded names by abolishing unnecessary rhetorics, introducing new descriptive terms and defining their meaning with an unprecedented precision. In the late 1740s Linnaeus began to use a parallel system of naming species with nomina trivialia. Nomen triviale, a trivial name, was a single- or two-word epithet placed on the margin of the page next to the many-worded "scientific" name. The only rules Linnaeus applied to them was that the trivial names should be short, unique within a given genus, and that they should not be changed. Linnaeus consistently applied nomina trivialia to the species of plants in Species Plantarum (1st edn. 1753) and to the species of animals in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758).

Biological classification : Biological classification Biological classification or scientific classification in biology, is a method by which biologists group and categorize organisms by biological type, such as genus or species. Biological classification is a form of scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis. Modern biological classification has its root in the work of Carolus Linnaeus, who grouped species according to shared physical characteristics. These groupings since have been revised to improve consistency with the Darwinian principle of common descent. Molecular phylogenetics, which uses DNA sequences as data, has driven many recent revisions and is likely to continue to do so. Biological classification belongs to the science of biological systematics.

Phylogeny : Phylogeny

Slide 24 : Phylogenetic trees are usually based on a combination of these lines of evidence:     Fossil record   MorphologyEmbryological patterns of development Chromosomes and DNA

Slide 25 : Fossil

Slide 26 : Morphology

Slide 27 : Homologous Structures

Slide 28 : Adaptive Radiation - modifies homologous structures Modifies homologous structures

Human : Human

Evolutionary : Evolutionary Whereas Linnaeus classified for ease of identification, it is now generally accepted that classification should reflect the Darwinian principle of common descent. Since the 1960s a trend called cladistic taxonomy (or cladistics or cladism) has emerged, arranging taxa in an evolutionary tree. If a taxon includes all the descendants of some ancestral form, it is called monophyletic, as opposed to paraphyletic. Other groups are called polyphyletic. A new formal code of nomenclature, the International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature, or PhyloCode for short, is currently under development, intended to deal with names of clades. Linnaean ranks will be optional under the PhyloCode, which is intended to coexist with the current, rank-based codes.

domains : domains Domains are a relatively new grouping. The three-domain system was first invented in 1990, but not generally accepted until later. Now, the majority of biologists accept the domain system, but a large minority use the five-kingdom method. One main characteristic of the three-domain method is the separation of Archaea and Bacteria, previously grouped into the single kingdom Bacteria (a kingdom also sometimes called Monera). Consequently, the three domains of life are conceptualized as Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukaryota (comprising the nuclei-bearing eukaryotes).[3] A small minority of scientists add Archaea as a sixth kingdom, but do not accept the domain method. Thomas Cavalier-Smith, who has published extensively on the classification of protists, has recently proposed that the Neomura, the clade that groups together the Archaea and Eukarya, would have evolved from Bacteria, more precisely from Actinobacteria.

Phylogenetic tree : Phylogenetic tree A phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities that are believed to have a common ancestor. In a phylogenetic tree, each node with descendants represents the most recent common ancestor of the descendants, and the edge lengths in some trees correspond to time estimates. Each node is called a taxonomic unit. Internal nodes are generally called hypothetical taxonomic units (HTUs) as they cannot be directly observed.

Phylogenic tree : Phylogenic tree

Phylogenetic nomenclature (PN) or phylogenetic taxonomy : Phylogenetic nomenclature (PN) or phylogenetic taxonomy Phylogenetic nomenclature (PN) or phylogenetic taxonomy is an alternative to rank-based nomenclature, applying definitions from cladistics (or phylogenetic systematics). Its two defining features are the use of phylogenetic definitions of biological taxon names, and the lack of obligatory ranks. It is currently not regulated, but the PhyloCode (International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature) is intended to regulate it once implemented. The terms cladism and cladist were first introduced by Ernst W. Mayr in 1965. They sometimes refer to cladistics as a whole, but often in particular the former refers to phylogenetic nomenclature and those who advocate a taxonomy founded on cladistics, going beyond mere use of phylogenetic analyses as a tool of systematics. These terms are particularly frequently used by those who prefer a rank-based nomenclature, and are thus often used somewhat disparagingly.

Binomial nomenclature : Binomial nomenclature In biology, binomial nomenclature is the formal system of naming species. The system is called binominal nomenclature (particularly in zoological circles), binary nomenclature (particularly in botanical circles), or the binomial classification system. The essence of it is that each species name is in (modern scientific) Latin and has two parts, so that it is popularly known as the "Latin name" of the species, although this terminology is frowned upon by biologists and philologists, who prefer the phrase scientific name. Instead of using the seven-category system in naming an organism, Carolus Linnaeus chose to use a two-word naming system. He adopted the binominal nomenclature scheme, using only the genus name and the specific name or epithet which together form the species name. For example, humans belong to genus Homo and their specific name is sapiens. Humans are then as a species classified by Linnaeus as Homo sapiens. Note that the first name, the genus, is capitalized, while the second is not. Species is the lowest rank in this system for classifying organisms

Trinomial nomenclature : Trinomial nomenclature In biology, trinomial nomenclature refers to names for taxa below the rank of species. This is different for animals and plants: for animals see trinomen. There is only one rank allowed below the rank of species: subspecies. for plants see ternary name. There is an indeterminate number of infraspecific ranks allowed below the level of species: subspecies is the highest ranked of these.

The 6 kingdoms : The 6 kingdoms Prokaryotes (Used to be 1 kingdom, Monera) Archaebacteria Eubacteria Eukaryotes Fungi Protista Animal Plantae

Overview of the 6 kingdoms : Overview of the 6 kingdoms Archaebacteria Unicellular Live in extreme environments Prokaryotic Eubacteria Unicellular Prokaryotic “Common bacteria”

Overview of the 6 kingdoms : Overview of the 6 kingdoms Protista Eukaryotic Unicellular or colonial Lots of different life styles Fungi Cell walls made of chitin Eukaryotic Multicellular External heterotrophs

Overview of the 6 kingdoms : Overview of the 6 kingdoms Plantae Eukaryotic & Multicellular Cell walls made of cellulose Autotrophic Animalia Eukaryotic & Multicellular No cell walls Internal heterotrophs

How many are out there? : How many are out there? Scientists currently estimate that There are 10 million species worldwide Over 5 million live in the tropics Most unnamed species are small or microscopic