Plant Systematics

PLANTS
1. What is a plant? In what two conceptual ways can the answer to this question be approached?
- Plants can be described in two ways, first is through its characteristics, such as an organism with
cell wall, spores, and something that is sedentary.
2. What are the three major groups of life currently accepted?
- Archaebacteria
- Eubacteria
- Eukarya or Eukaryotes
3. Name and define the mechanism for the evolution of chloroplasts.
- According to the book, it was largely accepted that the chloroplast of eukaryotes originated by
the engulfment of an ancestral photosynthetic bacterium and it became an endosymbiont of the
bacterium. Endosymbiosis is a type symbiosis results by the engulfment of one cell by another
and the two typically behaving as a single organism.
4. Name some chlorophyllous organismal groups that have traditionally been called plants but
that evolved chloroplasts independently.
- Euglenoids
- Dinoflagellates
- Brown Algaes
5. Draw a simplified cladogram showing the relative relationships among the green plants
(Chlorobionta), land plants (embryophytes),vascular plants (tracheophytes), seed plants
spermatophytes), gymnosperms, and angiosperms ( flowering plants).

6. Why are land plants treated as equivalent to plants in this book?

- According to my research, land plants were a monophyletic group which means that they have
common ancestry, whereas the photosynthetic eukaryotes if taken as a whole group are not
monophyletic.
7. List the many ways that plants are important, both in the past evolution of life on earth and in
terms of direct benefits to humans.
-

Plants were responsible for the oxygenation of the earth's atmosphere, a prerequisite to the
evolution of most eukaryotes.
Plants are also major primary producers on the land and in some aquatic systems. Thus, most
animals are dependent on them.
Plants are major components of many communities and ecosystems.
Plants are of great direct benefit to us for our physiological needs.

SYSTEMATICS
8. What is systematics and what is its primary emphasis?
- A science that includes and encompasses traditional taxonomy, description, identification,
nomenclature, and classification of organisms. Its primary goal is the reconstruction of
phylogeny, or evolutionary history of life.
9. Define biological evolution, describing what is meant both by descent and by modification.
- Descent is the transfer of genetic material from parent to offspring over time, whereas
modification is a change in the genetic material that is transferred from parent to offspring, such
that the genetic material of the offspring is different from that of the parent(s).
10. What is a lineage (clade)?
- A set of organisms interconnected through time and space by the transfer of genetic material
from parent to off spring.
11. Name and define the units that undergo evolutionary change.
- Populations and species.
- A population is a group of individuals of the same species that is usually
geographically delimited and that typically have a significant amount of gene exchange.
- Species are groups of populations that are related to one another by various criteria and that
have evolutionarily diverged from other such groups.
12. What are the two major mechanisms for evolutionary change?
- Natural selection and genetic drift.
13. What is a functional feature that results in increased survival or reproduction called?
- Adaptation.
14. Name and define the four components of taxonomy.
1. Description is the assignment of features or attributes to a taxon.
2. Identification is the process of associating an unknown taxon with a known one, or recognizing
that the unknown is new to science and warrants formal description and naming.

3. Nomenclature is the formal naming of taxa according to some standardized system.

4. Classification is the arrangement of entities (in this case, taxa) into some type of order.
15. Define Character and Character State.
- Characters are features. Two or more forms of a character are Character States
16. Give one example of a character and character state from morphology or from some type of
specialized data.
- arrangement of flowers
> single/solitary
> spike
> raceme
> panicle
> cyme
> corymb
> umbel
> fascicle
> spadix
> catkin
> head/capitate
17. What is a dichotomous key? a couplet? a lead?
- A dichotomous key is an identification device consisting of a series of two contrasting
statements.
- Each statement is a lead
- A pair of lead constitutes a couplet
18. What is a scientific name?
- Formal names, which by convention are translated into the Latin language, determined by
the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Latin was used because it was already a
dead language so there wouldnt be any misunderstanding with the meanings of the names.
19. Define binomial and indicate what each part of the binomial is called.
- Species names, consisting of two names: a genus name and a specific epithet.
20. What is the difference between rank and taxon?
- Ranks are hierarchical groupings, meaning that each rank is inclusive of all other ranks beneath
it.
- A taxon is a group of organisms typically treated at a given rank.
21. What is the plural of taxon?
- Taxa
22. Name the two main ways to classify organisms and describe how they differ.
- Phenetic - based on overall similarity.
- Phylogenetic - based on evolutionary history.

23. Define phylogeny and give the name of the branching diagram that represents phylogeny.
- Phylogeny, the primary goal of systematics, refers to the evolutionary history of a group of
organisms.
- Phylogeny is commonly represented in the form of a cladogram (or phylogenetic tree), a
branching diagram that conceptually represents the evolutionary pattern of an organism.
24. What does a split, from one lineage to two, represent?
- Lineage divergence, the diversification of lineages from one common ancestor.

25. Name the term for both a pre-existing feature and a new feature.
- Pre-existing feature = ancestral character state.
- New feature = derived character state, also called an apomorphy
26. What is phylogenetic systematics (cladistics)?
- A methodology for inferring the pattern of evolutionary history of a group of organisms,
utilizing apomorphies.
27. What is a monophyletic group? a paraphyletic group? a polyphyletic group?
- Monophyletic group - A group consisting of a common ancestor plus all
descendants of that ancestor.
- Paraphyletic group - A group consisting of a common ancestor but not all descendants of
that common ancestor.
- Polyphyletic group - A group in which there are two or more separate groups, each with a
separate common ancestor.

28. For what can phylogenetic methods be used?

- To devise a system of classification, and to address biogeographic or ecological history,
processes of speciation, adaptive character evolution, more organized and more understandable.
29. How is systematics the foundation of the biological sciences?
- Virtually all fields of biology are dependent on the correct taxonomic determination of a given
study organism.
30. How can systematics be viewed as unifying the biological sciences?
- Systematics may utilize data from all fields of biology which could help to understand the
evolutionary history and relationships of the groups of oraganisms.
31. How is systematics of value in conservation biology?

- Systematic gives us details about a species or a taxon, so with that we can the limits and
understand the history of evolution and geography that could help in conservation and
management decisions, and protect the rare and endangered species.
32. Of what benefit is plant systematics to you?