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Some Basic Principles of Classification (Notes)

This document outlines some basic principles of biological classification. It discusses the historical development of classification schemes from Aristotle to the modern system. Classification involves ordering organisms into hierarchical groups like domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species based on similarities. The goal is to show relationships between organisms and facilitate identification. Modern classification recognizes 8 kingdoms - Archaea, Bacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, Animalia, and Chromista. Principles of classification include using multiple correlated characteristics, recognizing discontinuities in variation, and arranging taxa in a hierarchy with species as the basic unit.

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Leen Magbanua
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2K views3 pages

Some Basic Principles of Classification (Notes)

This document outlines some basic principles of biological classification. It discusses the historical development of classification schemes from Aristotle to the modern system. Classification involves ordering organisms into hierarchical groups like domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species based on similarities. The goal is to show relationships between organisms and facilitate identification. Modern classification recognizes 8 kingdoms - Archaea, Bacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, Animalia, and Chromista. Principles of classification include using multiple correlated characteristics, recognizing discontinuities in variation, and arranging taxa in a hierarchy with species as the basic unit.

Uploaded by

Leen Magbanua
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

A.

Some Basic Principles of Classification

Classification
- Ordering of organisms into groups based on resemblances or common descent

Domain Specific - General


Species

Classification schemes
Purpose:
○ Shows the degree of relatedness among organizations
○ To facilitate identification of species

Historical Background
1. Aristotle
○ 384-322 BC
○ Father of Logic
○ First great classifier
○ 2 groups of animals
With blood
Without blood

2. Theophrastus
○ 371-286 BC
○ Student of Aristotle
○ Classified plants
Trees (tall growing plants with trunks and branches)

Shrubs (smaller than trees without trunks but have branches)

Herbs (not woody)

3. Middle Ages
○ Polynomial system - system of naming organisms with many names

4. John Ray
○ "species" - basic unit of classification
○ Differentiated monocots from dicots
○ "Historia Plantarum"

5. Carolus Linnaeus
○ 1707-1778
○ Binomial nomenclature system of classification
○ Books: Systema Naturae (1758)
Genera Plantarum (1737)
Species Plantarum (1737)

6. Georges Cuvier
○ 1769-1832
○ Classified animals based on body plans
Vertebra
Articulata
Radiata
Mollusca

Kingdom Schemes

Macro A Page 1
Kingdom Schemes
1. 2-Kingdom Schemes : ARISTOTLE
○ Plantae
○ Animalia
2. 3-Kingdom Schemes : ERNST HAECKEL (1866)
○ Plantae
○ Animalia
○ Protista
-Monera
3. 4-Kingdom Schemes : HERBERT COPELAND (1938)
○ Plantae
○ Animalia
○ Protista
○ Monera
4. 5-Kingdom Schemes : ROBERT H. WHITTAKER (1950's)
○ Plantae
○ Animalia
○ Protista
○ Monera
○ Fungi
5. 6-Kingdom Schemes : CARL WOESE
○ Plantae
○ Animalia Eukarya
○ Fungi
○ Protista Most primitive type of Monerans

○ Archaebacteria - Archae DNA different in cellular level


○ Eubacteria - Bacteria
6. 8-Kingdom Schemes
○ Domain: Archaea
□ Kingdom: Archaebacteria
○ Domain: Bacteria
□ Kingdom: Eubacteria
○ Domain: Eukarya
□ Plantae
□ Animalia
□ Archezoa Under Protista before
□ Chromista
□ Protista
□ Fungi
Note: There are many kingdom schemes due to advances on technology

Classification
- Placing of organisms into categories according to a particular system and in conformity with a particular nomenclatural syste m
- means of organizing information about an organism wherein it gives us idea about ancestry and lineage

○ Artificial system of classification


- System of planning organisms under groups/categories based on common characteristics

○ Natural system of classification


- Based on totality of characteristics including ancestry and lineage

Principles of classification
○ Based on character correlations and discontinuities of variation which are necessary for characterizations and delineation
○ Ordering of organisms into a hierarchy of taxa (species as the basic unit)
○ Orderly arrangement of system designed to express interrelationships
○ Provides a system for efficient and effective information storage
○ No character is more important than the other

Macro A Page 2
○ Orderly arrangement of system designed to express interrelationships
○ Provides a system for efficient and effective information storage
○ No character is more important than the other

May be more Diagnostic character


significant - Defines organism from another
organism
○ Limits of taxon cannot usually be defined quantitatively / qualitatively by a single characteristics
○ Assignment of natural population systems to taxa and the hierarchical arrangement involves judgement

Taxon
- Taxonomic unit at any level

Macro A Page 3

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