The Science of Taxonomy and Systematics

• Taxonomy is the science of naming, describing, and classifying organisms
• Taxonomists...

  • document the living world
  • make sure that the knowledge and understanding of biodiversity is organized and can be accessed
  • Discover, discern, describe, name, classify, study, compare, and identify the world's living and extinct species
• Systematics is "the study of nature and origin of the natural populations of living organisms, both present and past" (Myers, 1952)
• Systematics is "the production of cladograms that link taxa through their observed variation" (Wheeler, 2005)
• Systematics is conceptual and procedural relations among and within areas of systematics (Stuessy, 2009)
• Biosystematists...

  • study the bigger picture
  • ensure that the classification is founded on evolutionary relationships
  • predicts about the properties and traits of organisms
• Taxonomy and Systematics is useful in

  • feeding the world
  • discovering the drugs of the future
  • improving human health
  • enabling industrial innovation
  • enabling sustainability
• Ecology - ensuring that species and other taxa are scientifically robust, well characterised and can be accurately identified
• Genetics - provides evolutionary and taxonomic framework that allows an understanding of genetic diversity and evolution
• Geology - characterising and documenting fossils that form the basis of stratigraphy and hence the key to mining and oil and gas exploration
• Earth Science - biogeochemical cycles that help stabilise and drive the Earth system
• Oceanography - discovering and documenting the organisms that underpin and drive ocean productivity
• Climate Science - enabling climate to be tracked through an understanding of their effects on species and ecological communities
• Agricultural Science - characterizing pests, diseases, beneficial organisms and the wild relatives of crop plants
• Medicine - deeper, more knowledge of the microbiome
• Environmental Science - discriminating species and supporting an understanding of life histories and management of natural resources and species stocks
• Conservation Science -providing the authoritative species names that underpin conservation planning and legislation
• 16th century - rise of botany and zoology as applied life sciences
• 18th and 19th century - extensive and zoological taxonomy
• 19th century - introduction of the theory of evolution
• Taxonomy

  • classification of organisms
  • branch of systematics
  • classification and naming
  • doesn't deal with the evolutionary history
  • can change with further studies
• Systematics

  • study and classification of organisms for the determination of the evolutionary relationship
  • classification, naming, cladistics, phylogenetics
  • deals with evolutionary history
  • doesn't change