How to Analyze Evolutionary Relationships

Taxon (plural taxa) is the name designating a taxonomic grouping, such as species, genus, order, or phylum (or division), of either living or extinct organisms. Another name for taxon is taxonomic unit. For example, the Lepus genus comprising the hares is a particular taxon of the kingdom Animalia (animals), and the division Pinophyta comprising the conifers is one of 13 or 14 division-level taxa within the kingdom Plantae (plants). Taxonomy in the field of biology involves categorizing like organisms into particular groups. Each taxonomic grouping, or taxon, is assigned a taxonomic rank and can be placed at a particular level in a systematic hierarchy, traditionally reflecting shared physical characteristics but more recently aiming to reflect evolutionary relationships. The eight major taxonomic ranks, starting from the individual organism, are species, genus, family, order, class, phylum (or division), kingdom, and domain. There also are intermediate minor rankings between these, such as subclass, subspecies, and superfamily. Classifying the members of the biological world into various taxa reflects the desire of human beings to group the great diversity of living and extinct organisms into natural categories—particularly identifying groupings according to their connectedness based on lineage or evolutionary relatedness. #species #genus #phylum #kingdom #phyliogeneticTree #Evolution #speciation #diagram #branchingInAPhylogeneticTree #Genetics #bilology #taxonomy #cladogram #populationGenetics #hawaiiIslands #founderEffect #geneticDrift #geneticVariation #taxa #clade