BIO 326 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Holotype, Arthropod, Phylogenetics
14 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
Use of common names leads to confusion about the identity of organisms. Ideally names should convey something about how different organisms are related to each other. Taxonomy (a major focus of our lab section) Organizing species into larger groups or taxonomic ranks (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species) Study of the evolutionary relatedness of taxa. Determines distribution of important characters among different taxa. The study of organismal diversity and evolutionary relationships. International code of zoological nomenclature is the body that governs the naming of organisms and it has two guiding principles. Priority: the formal scientific name of a taxon is the first name applied to it in the scientific literature. Stability: the goal is to maintain names over time, which may come into conflict with advancement in knowledge. Iczn also has criteria for how a new species must be described for the name to be considered valid.
