BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: CLASSIFICATION

BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: CLASSIFICATION
Taxonomy is that branch of biology dealing with the identification and naming of organisms. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle apparently began the discussion on taxonomy. British naturalist John Ray is credited with revising the concept of naming and describing organisms. During the 1700s, Swedish botanist Carolus Linneus classified all then-known organisms into two large groups: the kingdoms Plantae and Animalia. Robert Whittaker in 1969 proposed five kingdoms: Plantae, Animalia, Fungi, Protista, and Monera. Other schemes involving an even greater number of kingdoms have lately been proposed, however most biologists employ Whittaker's five kingdoms. Recent studies suggest that three domains be employed: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya.

Linneus attempted to pigeon-hole (or classify) all known species of his time (1753). Linnean hierarchical classification was based on the premise that the species was the smallest unit, and that each species (or taxon) nested within a higher category.

Linneus also developed the concept of binomial nomenclature, whereby scientists speaking and writing different languages could communicate clearly. For example Man in English is Hombre in Spanish, Herr in German, Ren in Chinese, and Homo in Latin. Linneus settled on Latin, which was the language of learned men at that time. If a scientist refers today to Homo, all scientists know what organism/taxon he or she means.