Taxonomy

Taxon

A named group of organisms at any rank in the biological classification system. Taxa (plural) include species, genera, families, orders, classes, phyla, and kingdoms.

Used in the Books

This term appears in 1 chapter:

Scale and Complexity Power Laws

"...ions, they find right-skewed patterns, though the specific distributional form (log-series, log-normal, or power law) varies by community, scale, and taxon (McGill et al. 2007, Ecology). These distributions emerge from processes of colonization, competition, and extinction."

Biological Context

Taxonomy organizes biological diversity into nested hierarchical groups based on evolutionary relationships. Higher taxa (phyla, classes) represent ancient evolutionary branches; lower taxa (genera, species) represent more recent divergences. Taxonomic classification reflects evolutionary history.

Related Terms

Taxonomy Species genus

Tags

classificationevolutionfundamental