BIOL10003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: House Mouse, Ranunculus, Elephas
21 Jul 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Textbook: Chapter 22
Natural selection and isolation of random variants lead to the evolution of -4,000 million years
ago
-
Desire for order
○
Understand evolutionary affinities: phylogeny
○
Biodiversity assessment, ecological impact, management
○
Extrapolation of important information from closely related species (e.g. use of lab mice
to understand human disease)
○
Why classify?
-
Why name and classify?
Elephas (Greek)
○
Many names still in use today go back centuries
-
Type of buttercup as known in 1650
○
Some names were simply descriptive: Ranunculus, calycibus
-
Naming of organisms:
Example of Australian 'oaks': Tasmanian oaks (Eucalyptus), she-oaks (Casuarina), desert
oaks (Acacia), silky oaks (Grevillea). None are oaks (Quercus) and most are not even
close relatives.
○
An agreed upon name for each species
○
Common names are unreliable
-
Reveals evolutionary relationships
○
Classification should reflect those relationships
○
Creates a hierarchal system that organise our understanding
○
Systematics: study of diversity
-
Taxonomy and Systematics:
System of classifying and naming organisms
-
Each level tells us about the characteristics of that group
-
Linnaeus formalised use of the “binomial”, where each species is known by a genus and
species name, e.g. Mus musculus - the common mouse
-
Names are in Latin (sometimes derived from Greek), and are italicised
-
Genus name is capitalised but species name is lower case (Homo sapiens)
-
Organisms are arranged in a taxonomic hierarchy (hierarchy reflects ordered information
about the organisms)
-
Linnaeus or von Linne (born 1707)
Named species are based on a 'type specimen'
-
Not necessarily the best example of the species
-
Linnaeus gave the name Homo sapiens for humans, and as an example of a type specimen,
selected himself
-
In the cases of the older literature, an illustration often serves the purpose
-
Herbaria
○
Museums
○
Culture collections
○
Physical samples deposited in places that other people can then access for comparisons
-
Type specimens
The first validly published name shall be the legitimate name
-
The Latin ending of the species name must be grammatically identical to that of the genus
name
-
Naming rules:
An introduction to classification
Sunday, 23 July 2017
8:45 PM
Week 1 Page 1
Document Summary
Natural selection and isolation of random variants lead to the evolution of -4,000 million years ago. Extrapolation of important information from closely related species (e. g. use of lab mice to understand human disease) Many names still in use today go back centuries. Example of australian "oaks": tasmanian oaks (eucalyptus), she-oaks (casuarina), desert oaks (acacia), silky oaks (grevillea). None are oaks (quercus) and most are not even close relatives. Creates a hierarchal system that organise our understanding. Each level tells us about the characteristics of that group. Li(cid:374)(cid:374)aeus for(cid:373)alised use of the (cid:862)(cid:271)i(cid:374)o(cid:373)ial(cid:863), where ea(cid:272)h spe(cid:272)ies is k(cid:374)ow(cid:374) (cid:271)y a ge(cid:374)us a(cid:374)d species name, e. g. mus musculus - the common mouse. Names are in latin (sometimes derived from greek), and are italicised. Genus name is capitalised but species name is lower case (homo sapiens) Organisms are arranged in a taxonomic hierarchy (hierarchy reflects ordered information about the organisms) Named species are based on a "type specimen"
