The Living World - Nomenclature

Description:

Biodiversity is the occurrence of a wide variety of life forms on earth. The number of species that have been reported ranges from 1.7 to 1.8 million.

Nomenclature is the process of naming organisms.

Vernacular or common names

• Names based on a particular language or region.
• They are uninominal.

Disadvantages of vernacular names

• All organisms do not occur in an area.
• Common names cannot be used for communication among scientists.
• Some common names have incorrect meanings like jelly fish belongs to a different phyla and has no relationship with true fishes.

Binomial nomenclature

• Carolus Linnaeus developed the system of binomial nomenclature to overcome the limitations of vernacular names.
• Linnaeus’s findings were collaborated in the book named "Species Plantarum" and its 10 th edition is

  "Systema Naturae" published in 1758.

• According to this all organisms are given a particular name which consists of two components. The first is the genetic name or generic name and the second is the specific name or the species name.

Codes for Binomial Nomenclature

• International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN).
• International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).
• International Code of Bacteriological Nomenclature (IC Bac N).
• International Code of Viral Nomenclature (ICVN).
• International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP).

Rules for Binomial Nomenclature

• Biological names are generally derived from latin words and are written in italics.
• The first word in a biological name represents the genus while the second component denotes specific epithet.
• Both words in a biological name when hand written are separately underlined, or printed in italics to indicate their Latin origin.
• The word denoting the genus starts with a capital letter while the specific epithet starts with a small letter.
• The name of the author is included after the specific epithet. For example, mango was first described by Linnaeus so it is written as Mangifera indica Linn.

Classification − is described as the process of grouping of organisms based on some easily observable

characteristics.

Taxa −  scientific term for categories.

Taxonomy − It is the branch of study that deals with principles and procedures of identification, nomenclature and classification of organisms.