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The
Taxonomists are
biologists who determine the
scientific names of
organisms and then
group organisms into a hierarchy into an orderly system. In
taxonomy There are two tendency
about how to classify living things: by their differences or by their
similarities. Depending on their personal approach to recognizing
differences or commonalities between organisms. |
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- A "lumper" is a taxonomist
who group by similar traits, assuming that differences are not as
important as similarities. And place organisms which share a few major
characteristics in the same group. When
two named species are discovered to be of the same species, the older
species name is usually retained, and the newer species name dropped, a
process called synonymization or convivially, as
lumping.
-
A "splitter" is a taxonomist
who takes precise definitions, and creates new categories to classify
organism on the basis of the smallest known difference, so every small
difference is considered sufficient to create a new separate group.
Dividing a taxon into multiple, often new,
taxa is called splitting.
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For example in the family Cactaceae
“lumpers” recognize 30-50 genera and
about 1000 species, “splitters”
judge right to consider 200 genera and over of 2000 species.
In practice what happens is that organism are grouped on the basis of
compromise by the splitters and lumpers. |
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