How does classification help scientists

The binomial system of naming species uses Latin words. Each name has two parts, the genus and the species. Bi- means two, for example a bicycle has two wheels. Nom means name. Therefore binomial means 'two name'. Human beings belong to the genus Homo, and our species is sapiens - so the scientific binomial name is Homo sapiens.

The binomial system is important because it allows scientists to accurately identify individual species across the world without needing to know the scientist's home language. The grouping of families was added to allow the large number of new species to be included in this system. Linnaeus' original ideas have been adapted, but continued to be accepted and as new species are identified they can be fitted into the current classification system.

Originally, Linnaeus couldn't distinguish between different types of organisms such as algae , lichens , fungi, mosses and ferns. The inability to examine such organisms in detail made classifying of these organisms as different species difficult at that time. As more scientific equipment became available, it allowed scientists to examine organisms in more detail and note important features, such as cell structure. After kingdoms, the subsequent categories of increasing specificity are: phylum , class , order , family , genus , and species Figure 1.

Figure 1. The taxonomic classification system uses a hierarchical model to organize living organisms into increasingly specific categories. The common dog, Canis lupus familiaris , is a subspecies of Canis lupus , which also includes the wolf and dingo.

The kingdom Animalia stems from the Eukarya domain. For the common dog, the classification levels would be as shown in Figure 1. Therefore, the full name of an organism technically has eight terms. Notice that each name is capitalized except for species, and the genus and species names are italicized. Scientists generally refer to an organism only by its genus and species, which is its two-word scientific name, in what is called binomial nomenclature.

Therefore, the scientific name of the dog is Canis lupus. The name at each level is also called a taxon. In other words, dogs are in order Carnivora. Carnivora is the name of the taxon at the order level; Canidae is the taxon at the family level, and so forth. Organisms also have a common name that people typically use, in this case, dog. Subspecies are members of the same species that are capable of mating and reproducing viable offspring, but they are considered separate subspecies due to geographic or behavioral isolation or other factors.

Boxshall, and P. A dictionary of ecology, evolution, and systematics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.

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