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Form Taxon
Form classification is the classification of organisms based on their morphology (biology), morphology, which does not necessarily reflect their biological relationships. Form classification, generally restricted to palaeontology, reflects uncertainty; the goal of science is to move "form taxa" to biological taxa whose affinity is known. Form taxonomy is restricted to fossils that preserve too few characters for a conclusive taxonomic definition or assessment of their biological affinity, but whose study is made easier if a binomial name is available by which to identify them. The term "form classification" is preferred to "form taxonomy"; taxonomy suggests that the classification implies a biological affinity, whereas form classification is about giving a name to a group of morphologically-similar organisms that may not be related. A "parataxon" (not to be confused with parataxonomy), or "sciotaxon" (Gr. "shadow taxon"), is a classification based on incomplete data: for instan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charnia Spun
''Charnia'' is an extinct genus of frond-like lifeforms belonging to the Ediacaran biota with segmented, leaf-like ridges branching alternately to the right and left from a zig-zag medial suture (thus exhibiting glide reflection, or opposite isometry). The genus ''Charnia'' was named after Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, England, where the first fossilised specimen was found; the species was named after Roger Mason (geologist), Roger Mason, a schoolboy who was believed to have initially discovered it. ''Charnia'' is significant because it was the first Precambrian fossil to be recognized as such. The living organism grew on the sea floor, 570 to 550 million years ago, and is believed to have fed on nutrients in the water. Despite ''Charnia'' fern-like appearance, it is not a Photosynthesis, photosynthetic plant or alga because the nature of the fossil Bed (geology), beds where specimens have been found implies that it originally lived in deep water, well below the photic zon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleobotany
Paleobotany or palaeobotany, also known as paleophytology, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant fossils from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments ( paleogeography), and the evolutionary history of plants, with a bearing upon the evolution of life in general. It is a component of paleontology and paleobiology. The prefix ''palaeo-'' or ''paleo-'' means "ancient, old", and is derived from the Greek adjective , . Paleobotany includes the study of land plants, as well as the study of prehistoric marine photoautotrophs such as photosynthetic algae, seaweeds or kelp. A closely related field is palynology, which is the study of fossilized and extant spores and pollen. Paleobotany is important in the reconstruction of ancient ecological and climate systems, known as paleoecology and paleoclimatology respectively. It is fundamental to the study of green plant development and evolution ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphology (biology)
Morphology (from Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ) "form", and λόγος (lógos) "word, study, research") is the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features. This includes aspects of the outward appearance (shape, structure, color, pattern, size), as well as the form and structure of internal parts like bones and organs, i.e., anatomy. This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function. Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of the overall structure of an organism or taxon and its component parts. History The etymology of the word "morphology" is from the Ancient Greek (), meaning "form", and (), meaning "word, study, research". While the concept of form in biology, opposed to function, dates back to Aristotle (see Aristotle's biology), the field of morphology was developed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1790) and independently by the German anatomist and physiologist Karl Fried ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botanical Nomenclature
Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from taxonomy (biology), taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; Botany, botanical nomenclature then provides names for the results of this process. The starting point for modern botanical nomenclature is Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus' ''Species Plantarum'' of 1753. Botanical nomenclature is governed by the ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (''ICNafp''), which replaces the ''International Code of Botanical Nomenclature'' (''ICBN''). Fossil plants are also covered by the code of nomenclature. Within the limits set by that code there is another set of rules, the ''International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP)'' which applies to plant cultivars that have been deliberately altered or selected by humans (see cultigen). Botanical nomenclature is indep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Classification
In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon), and these groups are given a taxonomic rank; groups of a given rank can be aggregated to form a more inclusive group of higher rank, thus creating a taxonomic hierarchy. The principal ranks in modern use are domain, kingdom, phylum (''division'' is sometimes used in botany in place of ''phylum''), class, order, family, genus, and species. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus is regarded as the founder of the current system of taxonomy, having developed a ranked system known as Linnaean taxonomy for categorizing organisms. With advances in the theory, data and analytical technology of biological systematics, the Linnaean system has transformed into a system of modern biological classification intended to reflect the evolutionary relationships among organisms, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wastebasket Taxon
Wastebasket taxon (also called a wastebin taxon, dustbin taxon or catch-all taxon) is a term used by some taxonomists to refer to a taxon that has the purpose of classifying organisms that do not fit anywhere else. They are typically defined by either their designated members' often superficial similarity to each other, or their ''lack'' of one or more distinct character states or by their ''not'' belonging to one or more other taxa. Wastebasket taxa are by definition either paraphyletic or polyphyletic, and are therefore not considered valid taxa under strict cladistic rules of taxonomy. The name of a wastebasket taxon may in some cases be retained as the designation of an evolutionary grade, however. Examples There are many examples of paraphyletic groups, but true "wastebasket" taxa are those that are known not to, and perhaps not intended to, represent natural groups, but are nevertheless used as convenient groups of organisms. The acritarchs are perhaps the most famous ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taphonomy
Taphonomy is the study of how organisms decay and become fossilized or preserved in the paleontological record. The term ''taphonomy'' (from Greek language, Greek , 'burial' and , 'law') was introduced to paleontology in 1940 by Soviet scientist Ivan Yefremov, Ivan Efremov to describe the study of the transition of remains, parts, or products of organisms from the biosphere to the lithosphere. The term taphomorph is used to describe fossil structures that represent poorly-preserved, deteriorated remains of a mixture of Taxon, taxonomic groups, rather than of a single one. Description Taphonomic phenomena are grouped into two phases: biostratinomy, events that occur between death of the organism and the burial; and diagenesis, events that occur after the burial. Since Efremov's definition, taphonomy has expanded to include the fossilization of organic and inorganic materials through both cultural and environmental influences. Taphonomy is now most widely defined as the study of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenetics
In biology, phenetics (; ), also known as taximetrics, is an attempt to classify organisms based on overall similarity, usually with respect to morphology or other observable traits, regardless of their phylogeny or evolutionary relation. It is related closely to numerical taxonomy which is concerned with the use of numerical methods for taxonomic classification. Many people contributed to the development of phenetics, but the most influential were Peter Sneath and Robert R. Sokal. Their books are still primary references for this sub-discipline, although now out of print. Phenetics has been largely superseded by cladistics for research into evolutionary relationships among species. However, certain phenetic methods, such as neighbor-joining, are used for phylogenetics, as a reasonable approximation of phylogeny when more advanced methods (such as Bayesian inference) are too expensive computationally. Phenetic techniques include various forms of clustering and ordination. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Taxonomy
A folk taxonomy is a vernacular name, naming system, as distinct from Taxonomy (general), scientific taxonomy. Folk biological classification is the way people traditionally describe and organize the world around them, typically making generous use of form taxa such as "shrubs", "Heteroptera, bugs", "ducks", "fish", "algae", "vegetables", or of economic criteria such as "game animals", "pack animals", "weeds" and other like terms. Folk taxonomies are generated from social knowledge and are used in everyday speech. They are distinguished from scientific taxonomies that claim to be disembedded from social relations and thus more objective and Universality (philosophy), universal. Folk taxonomies exist to allow popular identification of classes of objects, and apply to all subsections of human activity. All parts of the world have their own systems of naming local plants and animals. These naming systems are a vital aid to survival and include information such as the fruiting patterns ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glossary Of Scientific Naming
This is a list of terms and symbols used in scientific names for organisms, and in describing the names. For proper parts of the names themselves, see List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names. Many of the abbreviations are used with or without a full stop, stop. Naming standards and taxonomic organizations and their codes and taxonomies * ICTV – International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses * ICSP – International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes ** formerly the ICSB – International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology ** publishes the ICNP – International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes *** formerly the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB) or Bacteriological Code (BC) * ICZN – International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature ** publishes ''ICZN'' – the ''International Code of Zoological Nomenclature'' or "ICZN Code" * IBC – International Botanical Congress ** publishes ''ICN'' – the ''International Code of Nome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Name Of A Biological Genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. phylogenetic analysis should clearly demonstrate both monophyly and validity as a separate lineage). # re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry grammatical information (inflectional endings) or lexical information ( derivational/lexical suffixes)''.'' Inflection changes the grammatical properties of a word within its syntactic category. Derivational suffixes fall into two categories: class-changing derivation and class-maintaining derivation. Particularly in the study of Semitic languages, suffixes are called affirmatives, as they can alter the form of the words. In Indo-European studies, a distinction is made between suffixes and endings (see Proto-Indo-European root). A word-final segment that is somewhere between a free morpheme and a bound morpheme is known as a suffixoidKremer, Marion. 1997. ''Person reference and gender in translation: a contrastive investigation of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
