Introduction: Evolutionary change that results in the formation of new species. Macroevolution is the source of past and present biodiversity. Systematics is the study of biodiversity, which helps us understand the evolutionary relationships between species. Systematic biology is a quantitative science that uses traits of living and fossil organisms to infer the relationships among organisms over time.
The Field of Taxonomy
Taxonomy (Gk. tasso, “arrange, classify”; nomos, “usage, law”) is the branch of systematic biology that identifies, names, and organizes biodiversity into related categories (Fig. 19.1). A taxon (pl. taxa) is the general name for a group containing an organism or a group of organisms that exhibits a set of shared traits. Classification is the process of naming and assigning organisms or groups of organisms to a taxon. For example, the taxon Vertebrata contains organisms with a bony spinal column. As another example, the taxon Canidae contains the wolf (Canis lupus) and its close relative, the domestic dog (Canis familiaris).
Taxonomists, scientists who study taxonomy, strive to classify all of the life on Earth. The methods used to classify living organisms have changed throughout history. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was interested in taxonomy, and he sorted organisms into groups, such as horses, birds, and oaks, based on a set of shared traits. Similarly, early taxonomists after Aristotle relied on physical traits to classify organisms. This method proved to be problematic, however, because many features of organisms were similar not because they shared a common ancestor but because of convergent evolution (see Chapter 17). For example, animals that have wings could be grouped into a single taxonomic group, but birds, bats, and beetles, all of which have wings, are profoundly different in many other ways.
Today, taxonomists attempt to classify organisms into natural groups, groupings of organisms that represent a shared evolutionary history. Natural groups are classified by using a set of traits to construct a phylogeny, or evolutionary “family tree,” that represents the evolutionary history of taxa. This evolutionary history is then used to classify taxa based on shared ancestry.
Advances in DNA technology allow modern systematic biologists to compare traits other than external features to classify organisms. For example, a phylogeny of animals constructed from DNA sequences clearly shows that beetles, birds, and bats have wings that evolved at different times in the history of life (see Fig. 19.9 for an example of DNA sequence differences). This means that birds, bats, and beetles do not share a common ancestor with wings. Rather, wings originated three times independently, on three different branches of the tree of life, as a result of convergent evolution.
Linnaean Taxonomy The classification hierarchy that taxonomists use today was created by Carolus Linnaeus (1707–78), the father of modern taxonomy. Linnaeus’s system was developed as a way to organize biodiversity. In the mid- eighteenth century, Europeans traveled to distant parts of the world and described, collected, and sent back to Europe examples of plants and animals they had not encountered before. During this time of discovery, Linnaeus developed binomial nomenclature, part of his classification system in which each species receives a unique two- part Latin name (Fig. 19.2). As an example, Lilium bulbiferum and Lilium canadense are two different species of lily. The first word, Lilium, is the genus (pl., genera), a classification category that can contain many species. The second word, known as the specific epithet, refers to one species within that genus. The specific epithet sometimes tells us something descriptive about the organism. Notice that the scientific name is in italics. The species name is designated by the full binomial name— in this case, either Lilium bulbiferum or Lilium canadense. Linnaean Classification Hierarchy Page 1 of 5
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The binomial nomenclature system of Linnaeus is used to classify species. Today, taxonomists use a nested, hierarchical set of categories to classify organisms. Each taxon is given a name and a rank according to which of the following set of major taxonomic groups it belongs species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and more recently the higher taxonomic category of domain. The organisms that fill a particular classification category are distinguishable from other organisms by their shared set of traits.
Organisms in the same domain have general traits in common, whereas those in the same species have quite specific traits in common. For example, the kingdom Animalia includes all animals. Within the kingdom Animalia is the phylum Chordata, a taxonomic group that contains only those animals with a spinal cord. Within the phylum Chordata is the class Mammalia, which contains animals that have spinal cords (phylum Chordata) and, among other characteristics, mammary glands. The species is the most exclusive of all the categories, as it contains only a single type of organism. The house mouse, Mus musculus, is a single species of mouse in the family Muridae, a family in the order Rodentia (one of several orders in the class Mammalia).
Rules of Binomial Nomenclature
A Biologist from all over the world follows a uniform set of principles for naming the organisms. There are two international codes which are agreed upon by all the biologists over the entire world for the naming protocol. They are: International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) – Deals with the biological nomenclature for plants. International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) – Deals with the biological nomenclature of animals. These codes make sure that each organism gets a specific name, and that name is globally identified. The naming follows certain conventions. Each scientific name has two parts: Generic name and Specific epithet. The rest of the binomial nomenclature rules for writing the scientific names of organisms include the following: 1. All the scientific names of organisms are usually Latin. Hence, they are written in italics. 2. There exist two parts of a name. The first word identifies the genus, and the second word identifies the species. 3. When the names are handwritten, they are underlined or italicized if typed. This is done to specify its Latin origin. 4. The name of the genus starts with a capital letter and the name of the species starts with a small letter.
Why is Binomial Nomenclature Important?
As stated previously, there are millions of species of organisms distributed throughout the world. Furthermore, the same organisms are known by different names around the world, and this can cause confusion when trying to identify or classify. Hence, binomial nomenclature was seen as a viable solution to this problem. Table 1: Binomial example Common name Scientific name Genus Species (Generic name) (Specific epithet) Mindoro crocodile, Crocodylus mindorensis Crocodylus mindorensis Common cat Felis catus Felis catus
Kingdom classifications 1. Two-kingdom classification (1758) –introduce by Aristotle. Kingdom Plantae and Kingdom Animalia 2. Three- kingdom classification Ernst Haeckel – German Naturalist Kingdom Plantae, Kingdom Animalia, Kingdom Protista 3. Four- kingdom classification Edouard Chatton-French Marine Biologist, he introduces the term prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and he established the precursor to the domain system which he called empires. From this establishments, Herbert Copeland an American biologist, proposed Four-kingdom classification scheme. Plantae, Animalia, Protista and Monera 4. Five-kingdom classification (1969) Robert Whittaker- an American ecologist who introduces the Kingdom Fungi Kingdom Plantae, Kingdom Animalia, Kingdom Protista, Kingdom Monera 5. Six- kingdom classification In 1970’s a group of scientists led by Carl Woese proposed that Kingdom Monera can be subdivided into Kingdom Eubacteria and Kingdom Archaebacteria ( have distinct plasma membrane and cell wall) Kingdom Plantae, Kingdom Animalia, Kingdom Protista, Kingdom Eubacteria, Kingdom Archaebacteria 6. Eight- kingdom classification In this scheme, Kingdom Protista is subdivided into Kingdom Arhezoa, Kingdom Protozoa, and Kingdom Chromista. However, this proposed classification scheme has yet to gain widespread universal acceptance. Phylogeny Systematic biologists use characters from the fossil record, comparative anatomy and development, and the sequence, structure, and function of RNA and DNA molecules to construct a phylogeny. Systematic biologists study the evolutionary history of biodiversity, represented by a phylogeny. In essence, systematic biology is the study of the evolutionary history of biodiversity, and a phylogeny is the visual representation of that history.
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Interpreting a Phylogeny Systematic biologists construct a phylogeny from traits that are unique to, and shared by, a taxon and their common ancestor (an ancestor to two or more lines of descent). Each branch, or lineage, in a phylogeny represents a descendant of a common ancestor. When a new character evolves, a new evolutionary path can begin, or diverge, from the old, a new lineage is formed, and a new branch of the phylogeny arises (Fig. 19.5). Not all traits have equal value when making a phylogeny. Ancestral traits, or those found in the common ancestor, are not useful for determining the evolutionary relationships of an ancestor’s descendants. For example, deer, cattle, monkeys, and apes, all examples of mammals, share a common ancestor that had mammary glands (Fig. 19.5). Because all mammals have mammary glands, this trait is an ancestral trait and thus is not helpful for understanding how deer, cattle, monkeys, and apes are related to each other. In contrast, derived traits, or those not found in the common ancestor of a taxonomic group, are the most important traits for clarifying evolutionary relationships. For example, both monkeys and apes have an opposable thumb capable of grasping, a trait does not present in the common ancestor of mammals. This shared derived trait places monkeys and apes on a separate lineage of mammals called “primates”.
Cladistics When constructing any phylogeny, multiple characteristics from a variety of organisms are compared at the same time (Fig. 19.6). This approach can produce various evolutionary trees, because not all traits are equally useful to the study of evolutionary history. The challenge is determining which phylogeny of the many possible phylogenies is the best hypothesis of evolutionary history. One way to determine the answer is through the use of cladistics. Cladistics is a method that uses shared, derived traits to develop a hypothesis of evolutionary history. The evolutionary history of derived traits is interpreted into a type of phylogeny constructed with cladistic methods, called a cladogram. In a cladogram, a common ancestor and all its descendant lineages is called a clade. Figure 19.6 Constructing a cladogram: the data. The lancelet is in the outgroup, and all the other species listed are in an ingroup (study group). The species in the ingroup have shared derived traits—derived because a lancelet does not have the trait, shared because certain species in the study group do have them. All the species in the ingroup have vertebrae, all but a fish have four limbs.
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Cladistics applies the principle of parsimony (L. parsimonia, “frugality, thrift”) to a set of traits to construct a cladogram. Parsimony considers the simplest solution to be the “optimal” solution. Thus, the cladogram that represents the simplest evolutionary history—that is, the one that requires the fewest number of evolutionary changes—is considered the best hypothesis based on the traits used to construct the cladogram. As with any hypothesis, a cladogram may change when new traits are discovered and incorporated into the construction of a cladogram. The important point is that our understanding of evolutionary history is a working hypothesis, constantly changing as we learn more about organisms’ traits and lifestyles. Thus, cladistics is a hypothesis-based, quantitative science that is subject to rigorous testing.
The first step in developing a cladogram is to construct a table that summarizes the derived traits of the taxa being compared (Fig. 19.6). Derived traits are used to determine shared ancestry among taxa. In cladistics, the outgroup is the taxon that is used to determine the ancestral and derived states of characters in the ingroup, or the taxa for which the evolutionary relationships are being determined. In Figure 19.6, the outgroup is the lancelet, and the ingroup contains all other vertebrates. Traits present in the ingroup but not in the lancelet (the outgroup) are defined as derived traits. For example, all chordates, including the lancelet, have a dorsal or spinal nerve cord, so this is an ancestral trait. Nested within the chordates are clades, each with a uniquely derived trait. Tetrapods are a clade within the chordates that does not include fish, because fish have a dorsal nerve cord but do not have four limbs (Fig. 19.7). Likewise, amphibians are tetrapods, but they do not have an amnion, one of several protective membranes that surround a growing embryo, like those found in an amniotic egg. Thus, amniotes are a clade of organisms that possess an amnion, which does not include amphibians.
References: • MIRABETE, G.S., M.O. JAVIER and J. E. TONDO. 2020. General Biology 2. Diwa Learning Systems Inc. Makati City, Philippines. • RABAGO, L.M., C.C. JOAQUIN, and C. B. LAGUNZAD. 2004. Functional Biology Modular Approach. Vibal Publishing House, Inc. Quezon City, Philippines. • Vern. (2014, September 27). Choose to view chapter section with a click on the section heading. SlideServe. https://www.slideserve.com/vern/choose-to-view-chapter-section-with-a-click-on-the-section-heading • Admin. (2022). Binomial Nomenclature - Rules of Binomial Nomenclature. BYJUS. https://byjus.com/biology/binomial-nomenclature/
