1. EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES CREATE DIVERSITY
>1.5 million known species! (and that’s only the eukaryotes)
10 million total?
Make sense of it all through classification:
taxonomy = categories
phylogeny = ancestry
aka SYSTEMATICS
a HUGE task!

2. Carl Linne’ (aka Linneaus)
• Created a system for grouping all organisms
broadest group = kingdom
most specific = species
• Shortened lengthy latin polynomial names to binomials
scientific names use genus
and species levels of taxa
i.e. Homo sapiens
1735

3. Linnean Taxonomy is a hierarchy
of increasingly exclusive groups

5. Animalia Plantae Fungi Protista Animalia Chordata Mammalia Primate
Homindae
Homo
sapiens
H. ergastor H. erectus
H. heidelbergensis etc

6. Same group, but how related?
C. Darwin, 1837
E. Haeckel, 1866

7. Phylogenetic Tree attempts to explain: who is related
when they shared an ancestor
Phylogenetic Tree
Speciation events create branches
Junctions indicate a common ancestor

8. Cladogram
a phylogeny based on a shared set of characteristics, for comparing organisms, relative to one another
Outgroup
jawless fish
time is relative, not absolute

9. Criteria for classifying is homology (similarities based on shared origins)
biochemistry
genome
embryology
anatomy

10. Interesting? Yes. Practical value? YES!

12. Illustrative Example:
time
ancestor
Illustrative Example:
Hawaiian Honeycreepers
oldest lineage
oldest island