The future of Taxonomy

First off, since not everybody knows the vocabulary of Taxonomy, I'll explain a bit:

The levels of Taxonomic classification are as follows: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

Domain is the most general. There are three domains: Bacteria, Archaea (a different type of bacteria) and Eukaryotes. Since Bacteria and Archaea are not well-documented or classified well, let's focus on Eukarya.

Eukarya has four Kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, and Protista (everything not animal, plant, or fungus). All animals are Eukaryotes, but not all Eukaryotes are animals. Animal A is more closely related to Animals B, C, and D, than it is to plant Q (all the animals are in the same kingdom). But animals A-D and plant Q (same domain) are more closely related to each other than to bacteria ^~-.

Likewise, Kingdoms are divided into Phylums, and you get the general idea. In Kingdom Plantae (which is in Domain Eukarya), there is a phylum called Phylum Magnoliophyta, and that phylum is all the flowering plants; and includes 95% of all plant species. Or, to use our ABC animals from before, maybe Animal A and B are in phylum Chordata (everything with a backbone, spinal chord, or similar structure) while animal C and D are in phylum Arthropoda (insects, crustaceans, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes; all have an exoskeleton that they can shed to grow); Animals C and D are closer to each other than to A.

And so on, you get the idea.

A Clade is a group of species defined by a common ancestor. A clade must include all the species descended from that ancestor; and cannot include any species not descended from that ancestor. So, the group "lizards" (old world lizards + Anolis the new world lizards) is not a clade, as Old World lizards and Snakes are more closely related to each other than to New World lizards (anolis).

Taxonomy is, as of yet, a field requiring some changes; especially as Kingdom Protista is not a clade and should probably be split into other kingdoms.

Additionally, Phylum Chordata is much closer to phylum Echinoderm than it is to Phylum Anthropoda or Porifera. Is there any way that we could make the names of the phyla express how closely related they are? Perhaps a system of alphabetizing, where phyla closely related have alphabetically closer names to one another, and Phyla distantly related within the same kingdom would have alphabetically further names from one another?

It seems strange to me that Phylum Mangnoliophyta has over 260,000 species and Phylum Ginkophyta has only one species. Maybe the length of the phylum name should reflect the number of species living in it? So, Ginkophyta would be something like P Hylum ab, and Magnoliophyta would be something like antidisestablishmentarianism?

Additionally, the vast, vast majority of Protist, Bacteria, Archaea, and Fungi species remain undocumented and unnamed. Should there be increased funding for taxonomists, given that many species may be in danger of extinction before we even have a chance to document them?

edited 9th Nov '13 12:35:31 PM by Questrayve

It might be helpful to add brief definitions for the terms you're using - namely, "phylum" and "clade." I assume that the Tropers that would click this thread would probably be familiar with those terms, but it's possible that they're not and you're missing a good opportunity to teach people a couple of basic terms that they might not know.

If you could add just a line or two defining each term, that'd be great.

Also maybe link to a reference to help the rest if us get up to speed?

Taxonomy as a whole is in the doldrums a bit, yes (not as sexy as cancer or pandas). <_< More funding wouldn't go amiss across all sections.

But, even the more researched and funded areas of it need some frantic updating, as well. <glances at the family Hominidae in passing, for some reason> Some of the presumptions made in the interrelations in there have proven... a little erroneous over the past two decades.

Well, Taxonomy started way back on "What looks alike" which worked well enough until modern genetics came along.

"It might be helpful to add brief definitions for the terms you're using - namely, "phylum" and "clade." I assume that the Tropers that would click this thread would probably be familiar with those terms, but it's possible that they're not and you're missing a good opportunity to teach people a couple of basic terms that they might not know.

If you could add just a line or two defining each term, that'd be great. "

Okay, I edited it.

Thanks.