Taxa

Synonyms

Classification of Organisms; Taxon; Taxonomic Rank; Taxonomy

Definition

Taxa, the plural form of taxon, are the names given to taxonomic groups in an academic system of nomenclature.

The term taxon was coined by German biologist, Adolf Meyer-Abich, in 1926 as a derivative of the word taxonomy. Taxa are used within the field of taxonomy, which is the branch of science involving the classification of organisms. Taxonomists (i.e., biologists that group organisms into categories) use taxa to organize one or more populations of a particular organism that tend to exhibit morphological, behavioral, genetic, or evolutionary similarities. Taxonomists typically assign particular taxa a name and rank, which refers to a taxonomic categorization in which organisms are organized by their relative level to other organisms. At any rank, a taxon should indicate a common evolutionary background, suggesting that all members within the same taxonomic grouping evolved from common ancestors (de...