Classifying Biodiversity
There are over 1.5 million species that have been described in the world, and biologists estimate that there are between 5 – 30 million in total. We saw in the Biodiversity slideshow, that scientists like to organize all these species into groups based on features, or traits, that they have in common.
Organisms may have similar traits for several reasons:
a. They share adaptations to similar environmental conditions
b. They share the same role in the food chain
c. They are related to a common ancestor
Work through the Similarity slideshow to learn more
When classifying things it is important to be able to recognize how things are similar and how things are different, and venn diagrams are a very useful tool that help us do this. Watch the slideshow below for a simple example.
Now lets use this basic technique to look at how the similarities and differences among species can be used to classify them:
