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It is difficult to define a species in a way that applies to all organisms. [70] The debate about species concepts is called the species problem. [65] [71] [72] [73] The problem was recognised even in 1859, when Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species: I was much struck how entirely vague and arbitrary is the distinction between species and ...
The basic ranks are species and genus. When an organism is given a species name it is assigned to a genus, and the genus name is part of the species name. The species name is also called a binomial, that is, a two-term name. For example, the zoological name for the human species is Homo sapiens. This is usually italicized in print or underlined ...
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. . Species are classified by the IUCN Red List into nine groups set through criteria such as rate of decline, population size, area of geographic distribution, and degree of population and distribution fragmenta
The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy. [26] [27] [20] By extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at the higher taxonomic ranks subgenus and above, [20] or simply in clades that include more than one taxon considered a species, expressed in terms of phylogenetic nomenclature. [28]
The scientific name of a species is a binomial or binomen, and comprises two Latin words, the first denoting the genus and the second denoting the species. [5] The scientific name of a subspecies is formed slightly differently in the different nomenclature codes.
Human taxonomy is the classification of the human species within zoological taxonomy. The systematic genus, Homo, is designed to include both anatomically modern humans and extinct varieties of archaic humans.
A species complex is typically considered as a group of close, but distinct species. [5] Obviously, the concept is closely tied to the definition of a species. Modern biology understands a species as "separately evolving metapopulation lineage" but acknowledges that the criteria to delimit species may depend on the group studied. [6]
Species evenness is the relative number of individuals of each species in a given area. [181] Species richness [182] is the number of species present in a given area. Species diversity [183] is the relationship between species evenness and species richness. There are many ways to measure biodiversity within a given ecosystem.