THE LIVING WORLD 5
4. The first word denoting the genus starts with a capital letter
while the specific epithet starts with a small letter. It can be
illustrated with the example of Mangifera indica.
Name of the author appears after the specific epithet, i.e., at the end of
the biological name and is written in an abbreviated form, e.g., Mangifera
indica Linn. It indicates that this species was first described by Linnaeus.
Since it is nearly impossible to study all the living organisms, it is
necessary to devise some means to make this possible. This process is
classification. Classification is the process by which anything is grouped
into convenient categories based on some easily observable characters.
For example, we easily recognise groups such as plants or animals or
dogs, cats or insects. The moment we use any of these terms, we associate
certain characters with the organism in that group. What image do you
see when you think of a dog ? Obviously, each one of us will see ‘dogs’
and not ‘cats’. Now, if we were to think of ‘Alsatians’ we know what we are
talking about. Similarly, suppose we were to say ‘mammals’, you would,
of course, think of animals with external ears and body hair. Likewise, in
plants, if we try to talk of ‘Wheat’, the picture in each of our minds will be
of wheat plants, not of rice or any other plant. Hence, all these - ‘Dogs’,
‘Cats’, ‘Mammals’, ‘Wheat’, ‘Rice’, ‘Plants’, ‘Animals’, etc., are convenient
categories we use to study organisms. The scientific term for these
categories is taxa. Here you must recognise that taxa can indicate
categories at very different levels. ‘Plants’ – also form a taxa. ‘Wheat’ is
also a taxa. Similarly, ‘animals’, ‘mammals’, ‘dogs’ are all taxa – but you
know that a dog is a mammal and mammals are animals. Therefore,
‘animals’, ‘mammals’ and ‘dogs’ represent taxa at different levels.
Hence, based on characteristics, all living organisms can be classified
into different taxa. This process of classification is taxonomy. External
and internal structure, along with the structure of cell, development
process and ecological information of organisms are essential and form
the basis of modern taxonomic studies.
Hence, characterisation, identification, classification and nomenclature
are the processes that are basic to taxonomy.
Taxonomy is not something new. Human beings have always been
interested in knowing more and more about the various kinds of
organisms, particularly with reference to their own use. In early days,
human beings needed to find sources for their basic needs of food, clothing
and shelter. Hence, the earliest classifications were based on the ‘uses’ of
various organisms.
Human beings were, since long, not only interested in knowing more
about different kinds of organisms and their diversities, but also the
relationships among them. This branch of study was referred to as
systematics. The word systematics is derived from the Latin word
‘systema’ which means systematic arrangement of organisms. Linnaeus
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6 BIOLOGY
used Systema Naturae as the title of his publication. The scope of
systematics was later enlarged to include identification, nomenclature
and classification. Systematics takes into account evolutionary
relationships between organisms.
1.2 TAXONOMIC CATEGORIES
Classification is not a single step process but involves hierarchy of steps
in which each step represents a rank or category. Since the category is a
part of overall taxonomic arrangement, it is called the taxonomic category
and all categories together constitute the taxonomic hierarchy. Each
category, referred to as a unit of classification, in fact, represents a rank
and is commonly termed as taxon (pl.: taxa).
Taxonomic categories and hierarchy can be illustrated by an example.
Insects represent a group of organisms sharing common features like
three pairs of jointed legs. It means insects are recognisable concrete
objects which can be classified, and thus were given a rank or category.
Can you name other such groups of organisms? Remember, groups
represent category. Category further denotes rank. Each rank or taxon,
in fact, represents a unit of classification. These taxonomic groups/
categories are distinct biological entities and not merely morphological
aggregates.
Taxonomical studies of all known organisms have led to the
development of common categories such as kingdom, phylum or division
(for plants), class, order, family, genus and species. All organisms,
including those in the plant and animal kingdoms have species as the
lowest category. Now the question you may ask is, how to place an
organism in various categories? The basic requirement is the knowledge
of characters of an individual or group of organisms. This helps in
identifying similarities and dissimilarities among the individuals of the
same kind of organisms as well as of other kinds of organisms.
1.2.1 Species
Taxonomic studies consider a group of individual organisms with
fundamental similarities as a species. One should be able to distinguish
one species from the other closely related species based on the distinct
morphological differences. Let us consider Mangifera indica, Solanum
tuberosum (potato) and Panthera leo (lion). All the three names, indica,
tuberosum and leo, represent the specific epithets, while the first words
Mangifera, Solanum and Panthera are genera and represents another
higher level of taxon or category. Each genus may have one or more than
one specific epithets representing different organisms, but having
morphological similarities. For example, Panthera has another specific
epithet called tigris and Solanum includes species like nigrum and
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