Exobiology Classification

~~tantric~~ · 12-14-2013, 07:15 PM

In one of my ecology classes, we had a discussion about developing a naming system suited to ecology rather than evolutionary biology. This hypothetical system would describe an organism based on its position in the food web rather than phylogeny. The current system is hodgepodge - apex predatory, keystone species, etc. A systematic way of describing such things would be enormously useful in xenobiology, too.

I strongly suspect that if there is ever xenobiology, the only important part of a species name will be that it's unique. That will be the key to a database having the species' genome and ecological data. Binomials will hold on for historical reasons, but the rest of it could pretty much be dropped. Besides, we're all deathly sick of taxonomy papers.

12-14-2013, 07:15 PM	#11
~~tantric~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Athens, GA	Re: Exobiology Classification In one of my ecology classes, we had a discussion about developing a naming system suited to ecology rather than evolutionary biology. This hypothetical system would describe an organism based on its position in the food web rather than phylogeny. The current system is hodgepodge - apex predatory, keystone species, etc. A systematic way of describing such things would be enormously useful in xenobiology, too. I strongly suspect that if there is ever xenobiology, the only important part of a species name will be that it's unique. That will be the key to a database having the species' genome and ecological data. Binomials will hold on for historical reasons, but the rest of it could pretty much be dropped. Besides, we're all deathly sick of taxonomy papers.