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Taxon
Grouping of biological populations
Grouping of biological populations
In biology, a taxon is a group of one or more populations of an organism, or organisms, as seen by taxonomists to form a biological unit; (taxon: back-formation from taxonomy; : taxa). Although neither is required, a taxon, once its description has become established, is usually known by a particular name and is given a particular ranking.
Methods
Taxonomists consider:
- which organisms belong to a given taxon
- which criteria are to be used for deciding inclusion. This is especially the case in context of rank-based nomenclature (Linnaean taxonomy).
Once a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is governed by one of the nomenclature codes that specify the correct scientific name for a particular grouping.
Initial attempts at preserving human knowledge of plants and animals were presumably made in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers, as suggested by folk taxonomies interpreted from archeological and anthropological studies. Much later, as of Aristotle's teachings, and later stillas of the published works of Magnol, Tournefort, and Carl Linnaeus, (his Systema Naturae, 10th edition (1758)), and as of the unpublished works of Bernard and Antoine Laurent de Jussieuthen did European naturalists and scientists begin documenting this new field of human knowledge.
The idea of a unit-based system to classify the characteristics of plants and animals (later known as biological classification) was first made widely available in 1805 via Augustin Pyramus de Candolle's Principes élémentaires de botanique, published as the introduction to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's Flore françoise, 3rd ed. (1805), which treatise presented a system for the "natural classification" of plants. From that time forward systematists have competed, collaborated, and publishedwhile providing for organizing and classifying human knowledge of the life forms on planet Earth.
In modern biology studies, a "good" or "useful" taxon is commonly taken to be one that reflects evolutionary relationships. Many modern systematists are advocates of phylogenetic nomenclature; they use cladistic methods that require taxa to be monophyletic (i.e., show all the descendants of a common ancestor). Their basic unit, the clade, is equivalent to the taxon, and their using the clade implies that taxa should reflect evolutionary relationships. Similarly, among those contemporary taxonomists working with the traditional Linnean (binomial) nomenclature, only a few still propose taxa they know to be paraphyletic.
An example of a long-established taxon that is paraphyleticmeaning not also a cladeis the class Reptilia: the reptiles. Birds and mammals are descendants of animals long classed as reptiles; but traditionally, neither was placed in class Reptilia. Instead, birds are found in the class Aves, and mammals in the class Mammalia.
History
The term taxon was first used in 1926 by Adolf Meyer-Abich for animal groups, as a back-formation from the word taxonomy; the word taxonomy had been coined a century before from the Greek components (), meaning "arrangement", and (), meaning "method". For plants, it was proposed by Herman Johannes Lam in 1948, and it was adopted at the VII International Botanical Congress, held in 1950.
Definition
The glossary of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) defines a
- "taxon, (pl. taxa), n.
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