Order out of Chaos:
The Science of Taxonomy
(Classification)

Trying to organize the 1.8 million identified species on the planet is a daunting task. The first system was established in the 1700’s by Carolus Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist. He was trying to create order out chaos. What he did was remarkable because we now have a reasonable way to organize the amazing diversity of life, also known as “biodiversity.” We are still using Linnaeus’ classification system today although modifications have occurred over the last 300 years. The science of classification is called taxonomy. You will read about Linnaeus’ classification system and the amazing biodiversity of life on the planet as you do the summer assignment. Here is a brief overview of some major changes that have occurred in his system.

1700’s
Carolus Linnaeus establishes his system to classify all living things. He places everything in one of two kingdoms: Animal or Plant. For interested students, a recent National Geographic article tells the history of Linnaeus.

1960’s
Robert Whittaker revises Linnaeus’ system and classifies all living things into five kingdoms: Animal, Plant, Fungi, Protist, Monera (see figure 26.9 and 26.10 on pg. 499 in your textbook).

1970’s
Carl Woese, discovers that the kingdom Monera, which was made of very small, single-celled organisms (prokaryotes), is actually two very different groups: Bacteria and Archaea. Rather than construct a six kingdom system, he constructs a three domain system: Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya. The domain Eukarya includes the four kingdoms Whittaker identified (Animals, Plants, Fungi, and Protists). See figure 27.1, on pg. 503, figure 27.11 on pg. 513, and figure 28.3 on pg. 525 in your textbook. The University of California Museum of Paleontology website has a good graphic, although I think our textbook illustrations are better. Please note that this website has a different organization of kingdoms than I have shown above (there is still debate about this in the scientific community, but the system I have described above is the one you need to know).

2007
The science of classification, taxonomy, which is simply concerned with organizing the diversity of life was first developed before the publication of Darwin’s ideas on evolution by natural selection in 1859. Now scientists try to establish their classification of living things on the basis of evolutionary relationships between living organisms. The science of using evolutionary relationships, through time, to help classify living organisms is called systematics or phylogenetic systematics. If you want to know how this is done you can go to the University of California Museum of Paleontology website and read about it in more detail. You do not need to know the information at this website- it can get complicated- I am including the link for interested students.

Go to the new website, The Encyclopedia of Life, and view their five minute promotional video. It is very cool. Just click on the flash video on their homepage. The site is still in demo mode, but by next year it should have some really fantastic material. If you are really interested, and only if are really interested, view E.O.Wilson’s 22 minute TED award speech announcing his wish for the creation of The Encyclopedia of Life website to help inspire preservation of earth’s biodiversity.