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Lecture 1 Introduction To Systematic Biology

This document provides an introduction to systematic biology, including: - Systematics is the science of biological classification and studies organic diversity and evolution. - Its goals include reconstructing phylogeny and describing, identifying, naming, and classifying organisms into a hierarchical structure. - There are different approaches to taxonomy including evolutionary, phenetic, and phylogenetic views.

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Elizabeth Sherrill Mojica
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503 views

Lecture 1 Introduction To Systematic Biology

This document provides an introduction to systematic biology, including: - Systematics is the science of biological classification and studies organic diversity and evolution. - Its goals include reconstructing phylogeny and describing, identifying, naming, and classifying organisms into a hierarchical structure. - There are different approaches to taxonomy including evolutionary, phenetic, and phylogenetic views.

Uploaded by

Elizabeth Sherrill Mojica
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEMATIC

BIOLOGY
Adrian U. Supetran
Instructor I, Cavite State University
Guide Questions
• What will happen if systems don’t exist?
• What will happen if things around us don’t have names?
• What will happen if humans don’t have names?
Introduction to Systematics
Historical Setting (Schuh 2000)

• Systematics is the science of biological classification.


• It embodies the study of organic diversity and provides the
tools to study historical aspects of evolution.

Works of Rediscovered in the Rekindled interest in the thought


process that lead to the
Plato and Aristotle Middle Ages development of modern science.
Systematics and Taxonomy
• A science that includes and encompasses traditional
taxonomy (the description, identification,
nomenclature, and classification of organism);
• Its primary goal is the reconstruction of phylogeny or
evolutionary history of life.
Taxonomy

• Four components:
1. Description
2. Identification
3. Nomenclature
4. Classification
Description
• Assignment of features or attributes to a taxon.
• Features are called characters.
• Two or more forms of a character are character states
• The purpose of these descriptive terms is used as:
1. tools of communication
2. concise categorization
3. delimiting the attributes of a taxon
Examples
• Character = petal color
• Character state = is the petal color blue or green?

• Character = leaf shape


• Character state = lanceolate, elliptic, or ovate
Identification
• Process of associating an unknown taxon with a known one.
• Plant taxa can be identified in many ways. The most commonly
used way is by the use of Dichotomous Keys.
Nomenclature
• Formal naming of taxa according to some standardized system.
• Rules and regulations in naming plants are found in the
International Code of Nomenclature/ICN (formerly
known as ICBN or International Code of Botanical
Nomenclature).
• There are three principles in formalizing scientific
names.
Classification
• Arrangement of entities in their respective order.
• Primary purpose is cataloguing and expressing relationships
between these entities.
• Categories are also called ranks.
The Units of Systematics
• Taxa (singular, taxon) are the basic units of systematics. This
term can be used to refer to a grouping of organism at any
level in the systematic hierarchy.
• It does not refer to individual organisms, although such are
often studied by systematists as representatives of a given
taxon.
Essential Activities of Systematics
1. Recognition of basic units in nature, what
are usually called species.
2. Classification of species in a hierarchic
scheme.
3. Placement of information about species
and their classification in some broader
context.
The Schools of Taxonomy
1. The Evolutionary Taxonomic Point of View
2. The Phenetic Point of View
3. The Phylogenetic (Cladistic) Point of View
The Evolutionary Taxonomic Point of View

Population Study
Biological
Infraspecific Diversity
variability
The Phenetic Point of View

Number of Similarities Conversion to


Characters Differences Distances

• “Operationalizing” taxonomy would make data gathering


unbiased and possibly amenable to automation and the use of
computers.
The Phylogenetic Point of View

Shared derived
Genealogical characters
relationships Formal hierarchic
listing
The Place of Systematics in Biology
• Much of science is experimental in nature, but it is not the
prerequisite for qualifying as “scientific.”
• Systematists make discoveries involving the natural world, but
those discoveries are usually not the result of
experiment but rather of observation and
comparison.
Phenetics vs. Phylogeny (Simpson, 2006)
• Phenetic Classification is based on overall similarities.
• Phylogenetic Classification is based on evolutionary
history or patterns of descent, which may not correspond to
overall similarities.

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