BIOL 1002 : Exam 1 Notes
Document Summary
Organisms are arranged or grouped by the science of taxonomy. --taxonomy is the branch of biology concerned with naming and classifying the diverse forms of life. Organizing or grouping things helps in dealing with them: example: grocery store or your closet. The same idea holds true for the study of life. The origins of taxonomy date back to aristotle. However the foundation for modern classification, binomial nomenclature, was developed by linnaeus in the 1700"s. These categories are further divided into smaller and smaller groupings creating an organizational hierarchy. The lowest two categories of the taxonomic hierarchy (genus and species) make up the scientific name for an organism. The genus name is capitalized and the species name begins with a lowercase letter. The scientific name is usually underlined or italicized. The major taxonomic categories from most inclusive (biggest set) to least inclusive (smallest set) are: 2: domain, kingdom, phylum/division, class, order, family, genus, species.
