Chapter 17, Problem 7A

Summary Introduction

To explain:

The rules and use of binomial nomenclature.

Introduction:

In eighteenth century, Carolus Linnaeus proposed a system for nomenclature known as “Binomial Nomenclature”.

According to this, two terms are used to describe a species of living organisms, in which the first word indicates a genus and second word indicates a species. So, Binomial Nomenclature is the biological system of naming the organisms.

For example, the scientific name for mango is Mangifera indica. In this, Mangifera denotes the genus while indica denote the species.

Explanation of Solution

The nomenclature is important because they allow people throughout the world to communicate unambiguously about species. Binomial nomenclature is used to identify any organism by its name worldwide as an organism may have many local names so it might be difficult for us to recognize any species or organism by its local name.Biologists assigned the codes for naming of organisms and there are two international codes which are approved upon by all the biologists over the whole world for the naming protocol. They are:

1. International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) − Deals with the biological nomenclature for plants.
2. International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) − Deals with the biological nomenclature of animals.

These codes ensure that each organism gets a specific name and that name is worldwide identified.

Rules of binomial Nomenclature:

• All the scientific names of organisms are usually Latin. Therefore, they are written in italics.
• Binomial name will consist of two words. The first word identifies the genus and the second word identifies the species.
• When the names are handwritten, they are underlined or italicized if typed. This is done to specify its Latin origin.
• The name of the genus starts with a capital letter and the name of the species starts with a small letter.
• The name of scientist or biologist must be written after specific epithet in abbreviated form.Example: Mangifera indica Linn.