JIB 531
BIOSYSTEMATICS AND
TAXONOMY
Introduction to systematics
Lim Lee Sim
School of Distance Education
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Introduction to systematics
Systematics is the science of biological classification
It is also often called taxonomy due to its current practised is
based on the work of Carolus Linnaeus
It studies the diversity of life and provide the comparative
framework to study the history of life and evolution
The fundamental types of activities in systematics:
The recognition of basic units (species) of biological diversity in
nature
The classification of those species in a hierarchic scheme that
reflects our understanding of their phylogenetic relationships
The placement of information about species and their
classification in a broader context
Terms and concepts
Systematics: the scientific study of the diversity of
organisms and the relationships among them
Taxonomy: the theoretical study of classification,
including its bases, principles, procedures, and rules
Classification: the nomenclatural or hierarchic
formulisation of systemic studies
Nomenclature/Identification: the formal naming of taxa
according to some standardised system.
Systematics
Taxonomy
Description
Nomenclature
Classification
To involve with Time
evolutionary/life
factor
history
Phylogenetics
The schools of taxonomy developed in
the 20th century
The fundamental challenge of taxonomy is the
management and interpretation of vast amounts of
potentially conflicting organismal features which are
important as evidence of grouping
By 1930s, almost all biologists agreed an ideal
classification have to reflect the history pattern of
evolutionary divergence/phylogeny
BUT, no agreement on how that might be determined,
and many systematists only focus on their chosen group
of study
AT THE SAME TIME, new field of biology which is genetics
was introduced, which promised to reveal actual
mechanisms of evolutionary change
So three schools of taxonomy was developed
The schools of taxonomy/systematics
developed in the 20th century
The three main schools of taxonomy:
Evolutionary taxonomic
Phenetics
Phylogenetics/cladistics
Attributes of the three schools of systematics
Evolutionary
Phenetics Cladistics
Taxonomy
Character data
converted to matrix
of distances
Data type between taxa Discrete characters Discrete characters
Grouping method Overall similarity Special similarity Special similarity
Evolutionary tree,
accepts Cladogram,
Diagram type Phenogram paraphyletic tree dichotomous
Decision on Amount of Amount of Sharing of unique
Hierarchic level difference difference attributes
Sensitive to
evolutionary rate Yes Yes No
Maximum
Example of method Neighbor-Joining Bayesian parsimony
J.S.R. Gilmour, R.R. Sokal, Charles Darwin
P.H.A Sneath, Ernst Mayr P.C. Mitchell
A.J. Cain, P.J. Harrison,
Representative F.J. Rohlf, P.R. Ehrlich, D.H. George Gaylord W. Zimmermann
biologist Colless, Simpson Willi Hennig
How the different ideology of the three schools
affect the classification outcomes in zoology?
Evolutionary taxonomics Phenetics Cladistics
Living Class Mammalia Class Mammalia Class Mammalia
amniote Class Reptilia Class Reptilia Class Reptilia
tetrapods Subclass Testudines Subclass Testudines Subclass Testudines
(turtles) Subclass Squamata Subclass Sauria
Subclass Squamata Class Aves Infraclass Squamata
(lizards, snakes, (lizards and snakes)
crocodiles) Infraclass Archosauria
Class Aves (crocodiles, birds)
Order Crocodilia
Order Aves
How resilient of botany classification to the
different ideology of the three schools?
Traditional classification (e.g. Cladistic classification (Loconte & Stevenson, 1990,
Lawrence, 1951) 1991)
Seed plants Phylum Spermatophyta Phylum Spermatophyta
Subphylum Gymnospermae Subphylum Cycadales
Class Cycadales Subphylum Cladospermae
Class Gingkgoales Infraphylum Gingkgoales
Class Coniferales Infraphylum Mesospermae
Class Gnetales Microphylum Coniferales
Subphylum Angiospermae Microphylum Anaspermae
Class Dicotyledoneae Class Gnetales
Class Monocotyledoneae Class Angiospermae
Subclass Calycanthales
Subclass [unnamed]
Infraclass Magoliales
Infraclass [Unnamed]
Microclass Laurales
Microclass [Unnamed]
Etc.
Alternative approaches to classification
Two obvious types of biological classification:
Group recognition by overall similarity: the amount of
apparent difference among groups is important in
circumscribing relationships
Group recognition by special similarity: the amount of
apparent difference among groups is not important in
circumscribing relationships
The first great modern systematic controversy then ended
with the decline of phenetic and narrative evolutionary
taxonomic schools, as a general consensus emerged in
1980s that the cladistic approach offers compelling
methodological and philosophical advantages over the
rest of two alternatives
Position of systematics within Biology
Systematics make discoveries about the natural world
These discoveries are usually not the result of experiment
but rather of observation and comparison
Systematics is the most strongly comparative of all
biological sciences
Its methods and principles are different between
zoology and botany
It is also the most strongly historical subdiscipline within
biology, thus the basis of all inferences concerning
historical relationships
In earth sciences, systematics is equivalent to historical
geology, and the two fields are integrated in
paleontology
The systematic Literature
Descriptive works such as monographs, handbook, field
guide
Catalogues and checklists such as the catalogue by the
natural history museums, Kew Garden
Theoretical literature such as scientific journals
Textbooks
Abstracting and indexing sources
Resources from the internet such as TreeBASE, NCBI,
Species 2000, GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information
Facility)
Systematic collections
Repositories of specimens just like the libraries serve as
repositories for documents
Public museums, natural history museums
Turn on your internet connection
Click the picture above to watch a 6-min YouTube clip about
the origins of life on Earth and how life evolve overtime, via
an illustrative, narrative and layman version of systematics.
Narrator for the clip: Sir David Attenborough
Sources used in this lecture
Schuh, R.T. & Brower, A.V.Z. 2009 Biological Systematics: Principles and
Applications, Cornell University Press, 2nd Edition
Goto H.E. 1982 Animal Taxonomy, Edward Arnold (Publishers) Limited
https://www.wellcometreeoflife.org/
