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TaxonomyTaxonomy may refer to either a hierarchical classification of things, or the principles underlying the classification. Almost anything—animate objects, inanimate objects, places, and events—may be classified according to some taxonomic scheme.
Mathematically, a taxonomy is a tree structure of classifications for a given set of objects. At the top of this structure is a single classification—the root node—that applies to all objects. Nodes below this root are more specific classifications that apply to subsets of the total set of classified objects. So for instance in Carolus Linnaeus's Scientific classification of organisms, the root is the Organism (as this applies to all living things, it is implied rather than stated explicitly). Below this are the Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species, with various other ranks sometimes inserted.
Some have argued that the human mind naturally organizes its knowledge of the world into such systems. This view is often based on the epistemology of Immanuel Kant.
Anthropologists have observed that taxonomies are generally embedded in local cultural and social systems, and serve various social functions. Perhaps the most well-known and influential study of folk taxonomies is Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. The theories of Kant and Durkheim also influenced Claude Levi-Strauss, the founder of anthropological structuralism. Levi-Strauss wrote two important books on taxonomies; Totemism and The Savage Mind.
Such taxonomies as those analyzed by Durkheim and Levi-Strauss are sometimes called folk taxonomies to distinguish them from scientific taxonomies that claim to be disembedded from social relations and thus objective and universal. The most well-known and widely used scientific taxonomy is Linnaean taxonomy which classifies living things and originated with Carolus Linnaeus. This taxonomic system is accessible from the article evolutionary tree.
In recent years taxonomic classification has gained support from molecular systematics, a branch of bioinformatics that employs the method of gene sequencing to construct phylogenetic trees.
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Taxonomy and Systematics at Glasgow
About taxonomy and systematics at the University of Glasgow, with links to other internet resources on these subjects.
http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/
Fairchild Tropical Garden Virtual Herbarium
Includes photos of more than 50,000 plant, palm, cycad and other cultivated tropical plants from Florida and taxonomic information on grasses, especially bamboos, and other economically important and interesting plants.
http://www.virtualherbarium.org
BioNET - International
A global network of country-owned collaborative LOOPs to support national programs for biosystematics to support goals in areas such as sustainable development and pest management.
http://www.bionet-intl.org
NCBI Taxonomy Homepage
The NCBI Taxonomy Homepage
http://www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/taxonomyhome.html
American Society of Plant Taxonomists
Promotes research and teaching in the taxonomy, systematics, and phylogeny of vascular and nonvascular plants.
http://www.sysbot.org/
Science at the Natural History Museum
A world leader for research on taxonomy and biodiversity.
http://www.naturalhistorymuseum.org.uk/science/
Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification
ETI is a non-governmental organisation in operational relations with UNESCO. Their mission is to develop scientific/educational computer-aided information systems, to improve general access to, and to promote use of taxonomic and biodiversity knowledge worldwide.
http://www.eti.uva.nl/
Classification Lab
A project examining the phylogenetic tree of life and all of its features, with information and pictures for every class and an interactive, dynamic hierarchy.
http://sidwell.edu/us/science/vlb5/Labs/Classification_Lab/classification_lab.html
Scalenet - Glossary
A short glossary explaining some of the terms used in taxonomy. From a site on scale insects.
http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov/scalenet/glossary.htm
ETI World Taxonomist Database
Directory of specialists searchable by name, country, or specialization.
http://www.eti.uva.nl/Database/WTD.html
Glossary of Phylogenetic Systematics
An annotated, extensive hypertext glossary of the terminology of Phylogenetic Systematics, with a discussion and criticsm of mainstream Computer Cladistics.
http://www.bechly.de/glossary.htm
Tree of Life
A project containing information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their history, and characteristics. The information is linked together in the form of the evolutionary tree that connects all organisms to each other.
http://tolweb.org/
Treebase
A relational database of phylogenetic trees and the data matrices used to generate them from published research papers. Includes animals, plants, and fungi.
http://www.treebase.org/treebase/
Integrated Taxonomic Information System
Authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.
http://www.itis.usda.gov/
Biognomen
A Linnaean taxonomy arranged to show the evolutionary relationships among groups. One can navigate through the hierarchy vertically, or follow a lineage horizontally at a particular level of the hierarchy.
http://members.aol.com/bafiler/
Biodiversity and Biological Collection Databases
Information of interest to systematists and other organismic biologists such as biological collections, taxonomic files, directories and ListServ archives, computer programs, reports by standards bodies (IOPI, ASC, and SA2000), and access to on-line journals.
http://www.biocollections.org/
DELTA: Description Language for Taxonomy
A flexible format for encoding taxonomic descriptions for computer processing. It can be used to produce natural-language descriptions, keys, classifications, and information-retrieval systems.
http://biodiversity.bio.uno.edu/delta/
Curiosities of Biological Nomenclature
Etymologies, puns and funny sounds, wordplay, and more in taxonomy.
http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/taxonomy.html
Systema Naturae 2000
An up-to-date historical cross-referenced classification of life based on original authorative scientific literature.
http://sn2000.taxonomy.nl/
Universal Biological Indexer and Organizer
A networked information service for biological information resources, based upon the Taxonomic Name Server, a thesaurus of taxonomic information.
http://www.ubio.org
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