1. Ch. 17 Biodiversity
Mr. D

2. Scientists have identified and named almost 2 million species with many more yet to be named.
Ex. There may be more than 30 million insect species alone!

3. A. Taxonomy
Any particular group within a taxonomic system is called a taxon.
Taxons include from biggest to smallest:
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

4. This system was founded by Carolus Linnaeus.
He used a two part naming system using the genus and species of an organism known as binomial nomenclature.

5. B. Systematics
Classifying organisms due to their natural relationships.
Systematics uses several different methods:
1. Phylogenetics- the analysis of the evolutionary or ancestral relationships among taxa.
2. Cladistics- type of analysis that uses shared and derived characters as the only criteria for grouping taxa.

6. Example
Cladogram-
Shows relationships using shared characters (all members of a group have in common), or derived characters (feature that evolved only within the group being considered.)

7. Other methods of constructing cladograms:
1. Molecular level- uses amino acid sequences
2. Chromosomes- looks at banding patterns
3. Physical features
4. DNA