Principles of Systematics

Lecture 11 BS Semester 06
 Taxonomic characters
Weighing of Character/Weightage
• Character is any attribute by which member of a taxon differ from
member of other taxon.
• Raw material of Classification.
• Amount of phyletic information contents in a given character.
• More phyletic information --- high weight
• Low phyletic information ---- low weight
• Animal character may of high weight ---- mostly used by taxonomist
• Low weight ---- rarely used
• Also characters of intermediate weight.
 Taxonomic characters
Weighing of Character/Weightage
• Challenge for taxonomist which discordant character should be trusted?
• Process to determine that which character is more reliable is called
weighting
 Taxonomic characters
Weightage and Kind
• High weight
• The characters which having high amount of phyletic information’
• Complexity: having deep genotypic effects e.g. genitalia armature in insects
• Constancy: characters that will be constant through out the generation.
• Consistency: a character may be consistently present or consistently absent in
population
• No Ecological influence. Character that will be not change due to ecology
• Low weight
• The characters which having low amount of phyletic information.
These characters are opposite to the kinds of high weight characters
• High variable characters have low weightage.
 Taxonomic characters

1. Priori (before/without phyletic information)

• Proposed by Aristotle

2. Posteriori
• Proposed by Adenson (after phyletic information collection)
• All classification is based on this model.
 Taxonomic characters
Weightage and Kind
• High weight
• The characters which having high amount of phyletic information’
• Complexity: having deep genotypic effects e.g. genitalia armature in insects
• Constancy: characters that will be constant through out the generation.
• Consistency: a character may be consistently present or consistently absent in
population
• No Ecological influence. Character that will be not change due to ecology
• Low weight
• The characters which having low amount of phyletic information.
These characters are opposite to the kinds of high weight characters
• High variable characters have low weightage.
 Taxonomic characters
Systematic/Taxonomic Collection
• It is a method of collecting valuable biological specimens and
preserving them along with specimen documentations such as labels
and notations.
• It possess various attributes:
• Raw material of classification
• Document earth’s biodiversity
• Initially additional specimens of species – duplication exchange purpose.
• As there is variability in members of species
• Adequate sample of every population should be collected and preserved.
 Taxonomic characters
Systematic/Taxonomic Collection
What is Adequate?
• More material is needed in species with strong individual and geographical
variation than in uniform species.
Objective of Study
• Simple study or genetic variability
• When population analysis is attempted dealing with size, propotions, coloration, or
polymorphism large samples from numerous location are needed.
• For example in fish where each population of species may vary in some metric
charaters (fin ray, vertebrae), a single specimen per locality would tell us little.
• Facilliate the process of researching relationship amomg and within different groups of
organism biodiversity.
• We can use systematics to find out how insects are related to the res of the invertebrates