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Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life

First, an important note for everyone to remember:

A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in these articles. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!


Table of contents

Title WikiProject Tree of Life

Scope This WikiProject aims primarily to present the taxonomy of all living species (and maybe some extinct ones as well) in a tree structure. This is a particularly ambitious WikiProject, as there are millions of them.

Parentage The parent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Biology[?]. The grandparent of this WikiProject is the WikiProject Science[?].

Descendant Wikiprojects No descendant WikiProjects have been defined.

Similar Wikiprojects The similar WikiProject is the WikiProject Conservation worldwide.

Participants

See talk:Solanales for the original expression of this idea.

Structure There is an article called Tree of life, but since that is a disambiguation page, the real root of the Tree of Life is evolutionary tree. There shall be articles for all taxa of ranks domain, kingdom, phylum or division, class, order, family, and genus. There may be articles for intermediate taxa. Articles for species are generally not needed, but may be put for salient species such as Amorphophallus titanum.

Each taxon of a rank from genus to phylum/division, inclusive, shall have the following sections:

The following struck-out text (except for problems and references) no longer applies due to discussion on Talk:Hominid. Now a table will contain taxonomic information.
  • Placement: This is a list of the taxa of which this is a subtaxon.
  • Synonyms and common names: If this taxon is also known by another name, such as Gramineae for Poaceae, that is noted here. Also the common name, if any (grasses, in this case).
  • References: This is a list of references used in compiling the article, primarily those used for the children. If the reference is hardcopy, the date of publication shall be listed; if online, the date it was checked.
  • Text: Description of the taxon including distinguishing characters, how members of the taxon are used, ecology, etc. If the scientific name is also the common name of the same organism, the entire common-name article goes here. Anything about the taxon not covered by the other sections is fair game, including pictures (see Testudines).
  • Children: These are subtaxa of the taxon. If the children are anything genus or above, they are links.
  • Problems: I'm not quite sure what this is for.

These, except the text, may be placed in a table (see example below), right-justified at the top of the text. In this case, a picture, if any, is placed below the common name and above the placement. If the page is about a species, the "Children" section is replaced with a Binomial name section (see Bald eagle for an example).

If a taxon has a single child, they may be on the same page with a redirect from the other. For instance, since Ginkgo is the only genus in Ginkgophyta, Ginkgophyta, Ginkgoales, and Ginkgoaceae all redirect to Ginkgo. Similarly Cuscuta is the only genus in Cuscutaceae (and the common name dodder redirects there too).

If a taxon is also the common name for the same organism, the text should go above the placement, as in Hippopotamus. If the common name covers more than the taxon, as in octopus, that shall be noted.

If a taxon is a homonym of a word that is not the name of an organism, it or the non-organism shall be distinguished. For instance, Rubiaceae has links to the genera Alberta (plant)[?] and Augusta (plant)[?] to avoid confusion with the places Alberta and Augusta.

If a taxon is a homonym of the common name of a different organism, they may be placed on the same page with a horizontal rule between them. See nasturtium for an example.

Hierarchy Definition No classification of the Tree of Life has been defined. See this example on dividing a topic into a hierarchy.

General Strategy and Discussion forum

Potentially Useful References

  • www.itis.usda.gov (http://www.itis.usda.gov/) (often incomplete, occasional misspellings, birds are idiosyncratic)
  • NCBI database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/)
  • biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/angio (http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/angio/) (Comprehensive genus lists, flowering plants only)
  • The Tree Of Life Web Project (http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny)
  • Mikko's Phylogeny Archive (http://www.fmnh.helsinki.fi/users/haaramo/)
  • Vertebrata (http://epp.eps.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~seicoro/bio/vertebrata) - Japanese language, but the structure's fine and the names are in Sciencese!)
  • Biosis Index to Organism Names (http://www.biosis.org.uk/triton/indexfm.htm)
  • uBio classification (http://microscope.mbl.edu/reflections/scripts/protist.php) - classifications fairly deep and up to date, generally following standard form though not always among basal groups
  • Systema naturae (http://sn2000.taxonomy.nl/) - Does not always give single breakdowns for groups, which is sometimes confusing but can be very useful
  • FishBase (http://www.fishbase.org/search?server=IFM-Kiel) - Huge database giving basic info on thousands of fish.

Template What colors to make the HTML table backgrounds

Animaliapink
Plantaelightgreen
Fungilightblue
Protistakhaki
Bacterialightgrey
Archaeadarkgray

Note that darkgray is spelt with an a, while lightgrey is spelt with an e, thanks to a quirk in the HTML standard. Changing these will work on some browsers, but not all.


Sample taxoboxes (plants)

Plants
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Plantae
Divisions
Nonvascular plants
    Bryophyta - mosses
.
.
Vascular plants
Seedless
    Psilophyta - whisk ferns
.
.
Seeded
Gymnosperms[?]
    Coniferophyta - conifers
.
.
Angiosperms
   Magnoliophyta - flowering plants
.
.
Ref. source-abbrev page-name (http://aaa.bbb.com/dir/page) yyyy-mm-dd

Level: Plantae

(example from Plant)

Page contents:

Synonyms and common names

Where found.

Text

Whatever you want to say.

Children

(actually, this is pretty much covered in the taxobox; if you decide to include it, add comments to the entries.)

Problems

Here we can note deviations from what the writer has accepted as a standard. In Solanales I show two families that my source did not show as belonging here. One it placed in another order; the other was not even in its data base. (from Talk:Solanales)

References

Give long form (good for printing) of references here.



Flowering plants
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Division:Magnoliophyta
Classes
Liliopsida (monocots)
Magnoliopsida (dicots)
.
.
Ref. source-abbrev page-name (http://aaa.bbb.com/dir/page) yyyy-mm-dd

Level: Division

(example from Flowering_plant)



Dicotyledons
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Division:Magnoliophyta
Class:Magnoliopsida
Orders
Subclass Asteridae
    Asterales (sunflowers) - 1 family
    Callitrichales - 2 families
.
.
Subclass Caryophyllidae
    Caryophyllales - 12 families
.
.
Ref. source-abbrev page-name (http://aaa.bbb.com/dir/page) yyyy-mm-dd

Level: Class

(example from Magnoliopsida)



Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Subkingdom[?]:Tracheobionta
Division:Magnoliophyta
Class:Magnoliopsida
Order:Scrophulariales
Families
   Acanthaceae
.
.
Ref. Uni-Ham 52efam (http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/d52/52efam.htm) 2002-09-06

Level: Order

(example from Scrophulariales)



Scrophulariaceae
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Scrophulariales
Family: Scrophulariaceae
Genera
  Agalinis[?] Raf. -- false foxglove
.
.
and about 200 more.
Ref. source-abbrev page-name (http://aaa.bbb.com/dir/page) yyyy-mm-dd

Level: Family

(example from Scrophulariaceae)



Spiderwort
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Division:Magnoliophyta
Class:Liliopsida
Order:Commelinales
Family: Commelinaceae[?]
Genus: Tradescantia
Species
Tradescantia bracteata Small ex Britt.
.
.
Ref. source-abbrev page-name (http://aaa.bbb.com/dir/page) yyyy-mm-dd

Level: Genus

(example from Spiderwort)



White ash
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Division:Magnoliophyta
Class:Magnoliopsida
Order:Scrophulariales *
Family:Oleaceae
Genus: Fraxinus
Species: americana
Binomial nomenclature
Fraxinus americana L.
* Some botanists include the Oleaceae
in the order Lamiales.

Level: Species

(example from White_ash)

This box also shows a comment on the botany; on this level the info should not be included in the text, but the taxobox needs it.



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