4B- Classification Of Organisms Flashcards
What is phylogeny?
The study of the evolutionary history of groups of organisms.
It tells us who’s related to whom and how closely related they are.
What diagram is used to bake how all organisms have evolved from shared common ancestors?
A phylogenetic tree.
What does the first branch point of a phylogenetic tree represent?
The common ancestor of all family members.
That ancestor is now extinct.
Closely related species diverged from each other most recently.
What is taxonomy?
Taxonomy is the science of classification.
It involves naming organisms and organising them into groups.
It makes them easier to identify and study.
How many levels of groups are used to classify organisms?
Eight.
They’re called taxa.
Each group is a taxon.
The groups are in a hierarchy, with the largest group at the top. There is no overlap.
What are the three domains?
Eukaryotes.
Bacteria.
Archaea.
What is the order of the taxa?
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
What is a species?
A group that only contains one type of organism.
A group of similar organisms able to reproduce to give fertile offspring.
What is the binomial naming system?
The naming system used for classifications.
All organisms have an internationally accepted name in Latin with two parts.
The first part is the genus with a capital letter.
The second is a species and begins with lower case.
They’re both in italics or underlined if written.
How can courtship behaviours be used to help classify species?
Courtship behaviours are used to attract a mate of the right species.
It is species specific- only members of the same species will respond to the behaviour, preventing interbreeding in order to produce fertile offspring.
The more closely related, the more similar the courtship behaviour.
Examples of courtship behavioural
Fire flies give specific patterns of light.
Crickets make sounds with each best being different for different species.
Male peacocks have colourful tails with unique feathers compared to other birds.
Male butterflies use chemicals to attract males.
