systematic 2a.

• Taxonomy is the science of naming and describing species.
• The Chinese Proverb states that "Wisdom begins with calling things by their right names".
• Museums contain approximately 2 Billion specimens worldwide.
• About 1.5 Million different species of life have been described, each year approximately 13,000 new species are described.
• Most scientists estimate that there are at least 50 to 100 Million actual species sharing our planet today.
• Many larger organisms have "common names", but sometimes more than one common name is used for the same organism.
• Without a specific (unique) name, it’s impossible to communicate about specific organisms.
• There are many ways to classify organisms, such as form, color, size, chemical structure, genetic makeup, and earliest attempts used general appearance.
• The Phylocode proposes renaming many species to reflect their evolutionary relationships.
• A clade is any set of organisms with a common ancestor.
• The location where a species was found is part of its classification into higher taxa, which is based on their structural similarities (morphology).
• Instead of being grouped into ranks such as genus, family, order, etc., organisms would be assembled into “clades”.
• Phylocode is a new type of taxonomy that seeks to more closely reflect these phylogenetic relationships in the naming of a species.
• An alternative to the traditional binomial name is a species name that might be shortened or hyphenated with its former genus name, or given a numerical designation.
• Each taxon must be monophyletic, meaning all members must be from the same original ancestor.
• After Darwin, classification became closely tied to evolutionary relationships (phylogeny).
• Aristotle was the first to try to name and classify things based on structural similarities, describing approximately 520 species of animals, including around Greece.
• Theophrastus classified plants into herbs, shrubs and trees after the invention of the printing press in 1400’s.
• Carolus Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, developed and published the first comprehensive and consistent classification system for both plants and animals.
• Leaf for photosynthesis becomes specialized as thorns, tendrils, food or water storage, flower parts, etc.
• Those with the most changes in the structure are the most distantly related.
• Before Darwin, species names were given based on physical characteristics or to honor a researcher in the field.
• Homologous structures have the same origin and imply an evolutionary relationship, for example, bird wing, human arm, whale flipper.
• Phylogeny is the study of the evolutionary history of species, with each species included in a hierarchy of classification, each level of the hierarchy being more general than the one below.
• Molecular Taxonomy provides a more objective way to determine relationships, as the variations in structure of proteins or genes on a strand of DNA can be used to calculate how close of a relationship there is between several organisms and can also be used to estimate how long ago new groups evolved.
• Numerical Taxonomy studies and opinions on these criteria are used to construct phylogenetic trees, but each decision is a value judgement.
• Analogous structures have similarity in function and sometimes appearance with no evolutionary connection, for example, bird wing, insect wing.
• Cladistics is a method of comparison that uses only homologous structures in comparing organisms, meaning that new traits are not used and each change in “primitive” structure is given equal weight.
• Carolus Linnaeus categorized and classified approximately 8000 different plants and 10,000 animals, including 828 mussels & molluscs, 2100 insects, 4777 fish, birds & mammals.
• Carolus Linnaeus stated that "God designed life; Linnaeus did the filing".
• Carolus Linnaeus emphasized morphological characteristics as the basis for arranging specimens in a collection.
• Each species is given a unique scientific name, while some species can have 100’s of common names, each has only one binomial name.
• Each unique name is a binomial binomial name: Genus + species epithet.
• Before, species consisted of up to 12 words, for example: [Genus + species epithet].
• Higher taxa in Linnaeus’ system are purely mythical creations to help us understand relationships between organisms and sometimes change as our knowledge of the group increases.
• Specialized structures are modified to perform a specific function.
• The species is the basic unit of classification and the only real unit in Linnaeus’ system.
• Systematics is the determination of the phylogeny of a species.
• Species were arranged in an ascending series of inclusive categories or ‘taxa’ in Linnaeus’ system.
• Agra phobia is an example of a beetle name in taxonomy.