Taxonomy

∞ generated and posted on 2016.02.16 ∞

The science of organism classification.

Great effort in biology is made to make sure that organisms are classified in a meaningful manner, which generally means in terms of so that more similar organisms are classified more similarly. Naming, or nomenclature, ideally follows classification so that an organism's – from binomial to – reflects .

The result is that groupings of organisms, such as of mammals or birds, are rationally identified. Classifications also are nested in a way that lower-level groupings typically can be fit together into higher-level groups, with more closely related groups linked together at lower levels than less closely related groups (hierarchical classification).

Mammals and birds, for example, both can be classified under the heading of amniotes, which reflects their shared possession in one form or another of the amniotic (or reptilian) egg. The that includes the mammals and birds, as well as , by contrast, is , which are the vertebrates that possess . That is, amniotes represent a subset of gnathostomes while mammals, for example, represent a subset of amniotes.

The following is a list of major concepts associated with the science of taxonomy:

Secondary endosymbiosis, Binomial nomenclature, Biovar (Biotype), Branch point, Clade, Cladogram, Class, Clone, Dichotomous key, DNA chip, Domain, Domain Bacteria, Domain Eukarya, Eukaryotic species, Evolutionary tree, Family, Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH), Genus, Growth optimum, Hierarchical classification, Kingdom, L form, Maximum likelihood, Maximum parsimony, Molecular clock, Monophyletic, Nucleic acid hybridization, Order, Paraphyletic, Phage typing, Phylogenetic tree, Phylogeny, Phylum, Polymerase chain reaction, Polyphyletic, Prokaryotic species, Protist, Rooted, serovar(Serotype), Sister taxa, Slide agglutination test, sp., Species, spp., Specific epithet, Strain, Subspecies, Systematics, Taxa (Taxon), Taxonomy, Universal tree, Western blot