Importance in Biological Classification
The idea of species has a long history. It is one of the most important levels of classification, for several reasons:
- It often corresponds to what lay people treat as the different basic kinds of organism – dogs are one species, cats another.
- It is the standard binomial nomenclature (or trinomial nomenclature) by which scientists typically refer to organisms.
- It is the highest taxonomic level that cannot be made more or less inclusionary.
After years of use, the concept remains central to biology and a host of related fields, and yet also remains at times ill-defined.
Read more about this topic: Species
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