Flowering plant
The flowering plants known as angiosperms, Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 64 orders, 416 families 13,164 known genera and c. 369,000 known species. Like gymnosperms, angiosperms are seed-producing plants. However, they are distinguished from gymnosperms by characteristics including flowers, endosperm within the seeds, the production of fruits that contain the seeds. Etymologically, angiosperm means a plant; the term comes from the Greek words sperma. The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, 245 to 202 million years ago, the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya, they diversified extensively during the Early Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, replaced conifers as the dominant trees from 100 to 60 mya. Angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table below; these distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants and the most commercially important group to humans.
Angiosperm stems are made up of seven layers. The amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms; the vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the phloem form concentric rings. In the dicotyledons, the bundles in the young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium. By the formation of a layer of cambium between the bundles, a complete ring is formed, a regular periodical increase in thickness results from the development of xylem on the inside and phloem on the outside; the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Owing to differences in the character of the elements produced at the beginning and end of the season, the wood is marked out in transverse section into concentric rings, one for each season of growth, called annual rings.
Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the young stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases; the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species; the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally from the axil of a leaf; as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. More the flower-bearing portion of the plant is distinguished from the foliage-bearing or vegetative portion, forms a more or less elaborate branch-system called an inflorescence. There are two kinds of reproductive cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which will divide to become pollen grains, are the "male" cells and are borne in the stamens.
The "female" cells called megaspores, which will divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule and enclosed in the carpel. The flower may consist only of these parts, as in willow, where each flower comprises only a few stamens or two carpels. Other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls and to form an envelope attractive to pollinators; the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as petals. The outer series is green and leaf-like, functions to protect the rest of the flower the bud; the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract bird pollinators. Attraction is effected by color and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower; the characteristics that attract pollinators account for the popularity of flowers and flowering plants among humans. While the majority of flowers are perfect or hermaphrodite, flowering plants have developed numerous morphological and physiological mechanisms to reduce or prevent self-fertilization.
Heteromorphic flowers have short carpels and long stamens, or vice versa, so animal pollinators cannot transfer pollen to the pistil. Homomorphic flowers may employ a biochemical mechanism called self-incompatibility to discriminate between self and non-self pollen grains. In other species, the male and female parts are morphologically separated, developing on different flowers; the botanical term "Angiosperm", from the Ancient Greek αγγείον, angeíon and σπέρμα, was coined in the form Angiospermae by Paul Hermann in 1690, as the name of one of his primary divisions of the plant kingdom. This included flowering plants possessing seeds enclosed in capsules, distinguished from his Gymnospermae, or flowering plants with achenial or schizo-carpic fruits, the whole fruit or each of its pieces being here regarded as a seed and naked; the term and its antonym were maintained by Carl Linnaeus with the same sense, but with restricted application, in the names of the orders of his class Didynamia. Its use with any
Crab-eating macaque
The crab-eating macaque known as the long-tailed macaque, is a cercopithecine primate native to Southeast Asia. It is referred to as the cynomolgus monkey in laboratories, it has a long history alongside humans. The crab-eating macaque lives in matrilineal social groups with a female dominance hierarchy, male members leave the group when they reach puberty, they are opportunistic omnivores and have been documented using tools to obtain food in Thailand and Myanmar. The crab-eating macaque is a known invasive species and a threat to biodiversity in several locations, including Hong Kong and western New Guinea; the significant overlap in macaque and human living space has resulted in greater habitat loss, synanthropic living, inter- and intraspecies conflicts over resources. Macaca comes from the Portuguese word macaco, derived from makaku, a Fiot word; the specific epithet fascicularis is Latin for stripe. Sir Thomas Raffles, who gave the animal its scientific name in 1821, did not specify what he meant by the use of this word.
In Indonesia and Malaysia, M. fascicularis and other macaque species are known generically as kera because of their high-pitched cries. The crab-eating macaque has several common names, it is referred to as the long-tailed macaque due to its tail, longer than its body. The name crab-eating macaque refers to its being seen foraging beaches for crabs. Another common name for M. fascicularis is the cynomolgus monkey, from the name of a race of humans with long hair and handsome beards who used dogs for hunting according to Aristophanes of Byzantium, who derived the etymology of the word cynomolgus from the Greek κύων, cyon'dog' and the verb ἀμέλγειν, amelgein'to milk', by claiming that they milked female dogs. This name is used in laboratory settings. In Thailand, the species is called "ลิงแสม" because it forages in mangrove forests; the 10 subspecies of M. fascicularis are: Common long-tailed macaque, M. f. fascicularis Burmese long-tailed macaque, M. f. aurea Nicobar long-tailed macaque, M. f. umbrosa Dark-crowned long-tailed macaque, M. f. atriceps Con Song long-tailed macaque, M. f. condorensis Simeulue long-tailed macaque, M. f. fusca Lasia long-tailed macaque, M. f. lasiae Maratua long-tailed macaque, M. f. tua Kemujan long-tailed macaque, M. f. karimondjawae Philippine long-tailed macaque, M. f. philippensis The body length of the adult, which varies among subspecies, is 38–55 cm with short arms and legs.
Males are larger than females, weighing 5–9 kg compared to the 3–6 kg of females. The tail is longer than the body 40–65 cm, used for balance when they jump distances up to 5 m; the upper parts of the body are dark brown with light golden brown tips. The under parts are light grey with a dark grey/brown tail. Crab-eating macaques have backwards-directed crown hairs which sometimes form short crests on the midline, their skin is black on their feet and ears, whereas the skin on the muzzle is a light grayish pink color. The eyelids have prominent white markings and sometimes there are white spots on the ears. Males have cheek whiskers, while females have only cheek whiskers. Crab-eating macaques have a cheek pouch. Females show no perineal swelling. Macaques live in social groups that contain three to 20 females, their offspring, one or many males; the groups have fewer males than females. In social groups of macaques, a clear dominance hierarchy is seen among females; these ranks remain stable throughout the female’s lifetime and can be sustained through generations of matrilines.
Females have their highest birth rates around 10 years of age and stop bearing young by age 24. The social groups of macaques are female-bonded, meaning the males will disperse at the time of puberty. Thus, group relatedness on average appears to be lower than compared to matrilines. More difference in relatedness occurs when comparing high-ranking lineages to lower ranking lineages, with higher-ranking individuals being more related to one another. Additionally, groups of dispersing males born into the same social groups display a range of relatedness, at times appearing to be brothers, while at other times appearing to be unrelated. In addition to the matrilineal dominance hierarchy, male dominance rankings exist. Alpha males have a higher frequency of mating compared to their lower-ranking conspecifics; the increased success is due to his increased access to females and due to female preference of an alpha male during periods of maximum fertility. Though females have a preference for alpha males, they do display promiscuous behavior.
Through this behavior, females risk helping to rear a nonalpha offspring, yet benefit in two specific ways, both in regard to aggressive behavior. First, a decreased value is placed on one single copulation. Moreover, the risk of infanticide is decreased due to the uncertainty of paternity. Increasing group size leads to increased competition and energy spent trying to forage for resources, in particular, food. Further, social tensions build and the prevalence of tension-reducing interactions like social grooming fall with larger groups. Thus, group living appears to be maintained due to the safety against predation. Group living in all species is dependent on tolerance of other group members. In crab-eating macaques, successf
Endemism
Endemism is the ecological state of a species being unique to a defined geographic location, such as an island, country or other defined zone, or habitat type. The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species, endemic is precinctive, which applies to species that are restricted to a defined geographical area; the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, "native". Endēmos is formed of en meaning "in", dēmos meaning "the people"; the term "precinctive" has been suggested by some scientists, was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of "endemism". Precinction was first used by Frank and McCoy. Precinctive seems to have been coined by David Sharp when describing the Hawaiian fauna in 1900: "I use the word precinctive in the sense of'confined to the area under discussion'...'precinctive forms' means those forms that are confined to the area specified." That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks.
Physical and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa; the glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska. Political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism: neoendemism. Paleoendemism refers to species that were widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization and polyploidy in plants. Endemic types or species are likely to develop on geographically and biologically isolated areas such as islands and remote island groups, such as Hawaii, the Galápagos Islands, Socotra. Hydrangea hirta is an example of an endemic species found in Japan. Endemics can become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, including the introduction of new organisms.
There were millions of both Bermuda petrels and "Bermuda cedars" in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct. Cedars ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare. Principal causes of habitat degradation and loss in endemistic ecosystems include agriculture, urban growth, surface mining, mineral extraction, logging operations and slash-and-burn agriculture
Synonym (taxonomy)
In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that goes by a different scientific name, although the term is used somewhat differently in the zoological code of nomenclature. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies; this name is no longer in use: it is now a synonym of the current scientific name, Picea abies. Unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms have a different status. For any taxon with a particular circumscription and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation: it is always an alternative to a different scientific name. Given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name, one taxonomist's synonym may be another taxonomist's correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is named more than once, independently.
They may arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to become one, a species is moved to a different genus, a variety is moved to a different species, etc. Synonyms come about when the codes of nomenclature change, so that older names are no longer acceptable. To the general user of scientific names, in fields such as agriculture, ecology, general science, etc. A synonym is a name, used as the correct scientific name but, displaced by another scientific name, now regarded as correct, thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as "a taxonomic name which has the same application as another one, superseded and is no longer valid." In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have synonyms mentioned as such after the current scientific name, so as to avoid confusion. For example, if the much advertised name change should go through and the scientific name of the fruit fly were changed to Sophophora melanogaster, it would be helpful if any mention of this name was accompanied by "".
Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the term "synonym" in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes: they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural. A name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature. Speaking in general, name changes for nomenclatural reasons have become less frequent over time as the rules of nomenclature allow for names to be conserved, so as to promote stability of scientific names. In zoological nomenclature, codified in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names of the same taxonomic rank that pertain to that same taxon. For example, a particular species could, over time, have had two or more species-rank names published for it, while the same is applicable at higher ranks such as genera, orders, etc.
In each case, the earliest published name is called the senior synonym, while the name is the junior synonym. In the case where two names for the same taxon have been published the valid name is selected accorded to the principle of the first reviser such that, for example, of the names Strix scandiaca and Strix noctua, both published by Linnaeus in the same work at the same date for the taxon now determined to be the snowy owl, the epithet scandiaca has been selected as the valid name, with noctua becoming the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest published name, the senior synonym, by default takes precedence in naming rights and therefore, unless other restrictions interfere, must be used for the taxon. However, junior synonyms are still important to document, because if the earliest name cannot be used the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. For other purposes, if a researcher is interested in consulting or compiling all known information regarding a taxon, some of this may well have been published under names now regarded as outdated and so it is again useful to know a list of historic synonyms which may have been used for a given current taxon name.
Objective synonyms refer to taxa with same rank. This may be species-group taxa of the same rank with the same type specimen, genus-group taxa of the same rank with the same type species or if their type species are themselves objective synonyms, of family-group taxa with the same type genus, etc. In the case of subjective synonyms, there is no such shared type, so the synonymy is open to taxonomic judgement, meaning that th
Sapotaceae
The Sapotaceae are a family of flowering plants belonging to the order Ericales. The family includes about 800 species of evergreen shrubs in around 65 genera, their distribution is pantropical. Many species produce edible fruits, or white blood-sap, used to cleanse dirt and manually, while others have other economic uses. Species noted for their edible fruits include Manilkara, Chrysophyllum cainito, Pouteria. Vitellaria paradoxa is the source of an oil-rich nut, the source of edible shea butter, the major lipid source for many African ethnic groups and is used in traditional and Western cosmetics and medications. The'miracle fruit' Synsepalum dulcificum is in the Sapotaceae. Trees of the genus Palaquium produce an important latex with a wide variety of uses; the seeds of the tree Argania spinosa produce an edible oil, traditionally harvested in Morocco. The family name is derived from zapote, a Mexican vernacular name for one of the plants and Latinised by Linnaeus as sapota, a name now treated as a synonym of Manilkara
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle spelled Augustin Pyrame de Candolle was a Swiss botanist. René Louiche Desfontaines launched de Candolle's botanical career by recommending him at an herbarium. Within a couple of years de Candolle had established a new genus, he went on to document hundreds of plant families and create a new natural plant classification system. Although de Candolle's main focus was botany, he contributed to related fields such as phytogeography, paleontology, medical botany, economic botany. Candolle originated the idea of "Nature's war", which influenced Charles Darwin and the principle of natural selection. De Candolle recognized that multiple species may develop similar characteristics that did not appear in a common evolutionary ancestor. During his work with plants, de Candolle noticed that plant leaf movements follow a near-24-hour cycle in constant light, suggesting that an internal biological clock exists. Though many scientists doubted de Candolle's findings, experiments over a century demonstrated that ″the internal biological clock″ indeed exists.
Candolle's descendants continued his work on plant classification. Alphonse de Candolle and Casimir Pyrame de Candolle contributed to the Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, a catalog of plants begun by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was born on 4 February 1778 in Geneva, Switzerland, to Augustin de Candolle, a former official, his wife, Louise Eléonore Brière, his family descended from one of the ancient families of Provence in France, but relocated to Geneva at the end of the 16th century to escape religious persecution. At age seven de Candolle contracted of a severe case of hydrocephalus, which affected his childhood, he is said to have had great aptitude for learning, distinguishing himself in school with his rapid acquisition of knowledge in classical and general literature and his ability to write fine poetry. In 1794, he began his scientific studies at the Collège Calvin, where he studied under Jean Pierre Étienne Vaucher, who inspired de Candolle to make botanical science the chief pursuit of his life.
He spent four years at the Geneva Academy, studying science and law according to his father's wishes. In 1798, he moved to Paris, his botanical career formally began with the help of René Louiche Desfontaines, who recommended de Candolle for work in the herbarium of Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle during the summer of 1798. The position elevated de Candolle's reputation and led to valuable instruction from Desfontaines himself. De Candolle established his first genus, Senebiera, in 1799.de Candolle's first books, Plantarum historia succulentarum and Astragalogia, brought him to the notice of Georges Cuvier and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. de Candolle, with Cuvier's approval, acted as deputy at the Collège de France in 1802. Lamarck entrusted him with the publication of the third edition of the Flore française, in the introduction entitled Principes élémentaires de botanique, de Candolle proposed a natural method of plant classification as opposed to the artificial Linnaean method; the premise of de Candolle's method is.
In 1804, de Candolle published his Essai sur les propriétés médicales des plantes and was granted a doctor of medicine degree by the medical faculty of Paris. Two years he published Synopsis plantarum in flora Gallica descriptarum. de Candolle spent the next six summers making a botanical and agricultural survey of France at the request of the French government, published in 1813. In 1807 he was appointed professor of botany in the medical faculty of the University of Montpellier, where he would become the first chair of botany in 1810, his teaching at the University of Montpellier consisted of field classes attended by 200–300 students, starting at 5:00 am and finishing at 7:00 pm. While in Montpellier, de Candolle published his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, which introduced a new classification system and the word taxonomy. Candolle moved back to Geneva in 1816 and in the following year was invited by the government of the Canton of Geneva to fill the newly created chair of natural history.
De Candolle spent the rest of his life in an attempt to elaborate and complete his natural system of botanical classification. De Candolle published initial work in his Regni vegetabillis systema naturale, but after two volumes he realized he could not complete the project on such a large scale, he began his less extensive Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis in 1824. However, he was able to finish two-thirds of the whole. So, he was able to characterize over one hundred families of plants, helping to lay the empirical basis of general botany. Although de Candolle's main focus was botany, throughout his career he dabbled in fields related to botany, such as phytogeography, paleontology, medical botany, economic botany. In 1827 he was elected an associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. Augustin de Candolle was the first of four generations of botanists in the de Candolle dynasty, his son, Alphonse de Candolle, whom he fathered with his wife, Mademoiselle Torras succeeded to his father's chair in botany and continued the Prodromus.
Casimir Pyrame de Candolle, Augustin de Candolle's grandson contributed to the Prodromus through his detailed, extensive research and characterization of the Piperaceae family of plants. Augustin de Candolle's great-grandson, Richard Émile Augustin de Candolle
Ecology
Ecology is the branch of biology which studies the interactions among organisms and their environment. Objects of study include interactions of organisms that include biotic and abiotic components of their environment. Topics of interest include the biodiversity, distribution and populations of organisms, as well as cooperation and competition within and between species. Ecosystems are dynamically interacting systems of organisms, the communities they make up, the non-living components of their environment. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production, nutrient cycling, niche construction, regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment; these processes are sustained by organisms with specific life history traits. Biodiversity means the varieties of species and ecosystems, enhances certain ecosystem services. Ecology is not synonymous with natural history, or environmental science, it overlaps with the related sciences of evolutionary biology and ethology. An important focus for ecologists is to improve the understanding of how biodiversity affects ecological function.
Ecologists seek to explain: Life processes and adaptations The movement of materials and energy through living communities The successional development of ecosystems The abundance and distribution of organisms and biodiversity in the context of the environment. Ecology has practical applications in conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management, city planning, community health, economics and applied science, human social interaction. For example, the Circles of Sustainability approach treats ecology as more than the environment'out there', it is not treated as separate from humans. Organisms and resources compose ecosystems which, in turn, maintain biophysical feedback mechanisms that moderate processes acting on living and non-living components of the planet. Ecosystems sustain life-supporting functions and produce natural capital like biomass production, the regulation of climate, global biogeochemical cycles, water filtration, soil formation, erosion control, flood protection, many other natural features of scientific, economic, or intrinsic value.
The word "ecology" was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel. Ecological thought is derivative of established currents in philosophy from ethics and politics. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates and Aristotle laid the foundations of ecology in their studies on natural history. Modern ecology became a much more rigorous science in the late 19th century. Evolutionary concepts relating to adaptation and natural selection became the cornerstones of modern ecological theory; the scope of ecology contains a wide array of interacting levels of organization spanning micro-level to a planetary scale phenomena. Ecosystems, for example, contain interacting life forms. Ecosystems are dynamic, they do not always follow a linear successional path, but they are always changing and sometimes so that it can take thousands of years for ecological processes to bring about certain successional stages of a forest. An ecosystem's area can vary from tiny to vast. A single tree is of little consequence to the classification of a forest ecosystem, but critically relevant to organisms living in and on it.
Several generations of an aphid population can exist over the lifespan of a single leaf. Each of those aphids, in turn, support diverse bacterial communities; the nature of connections in ecological communities cannot be explained by knowing the details of each species in isolation, because the emergent pattern is neither revealed nor predicted until the ecosystem is studied as an integrated whole. Some ecological principles, however, do exhibit collective properties where the sum of the components explain the properties of the whole, such as birth rates of a population being equal to the sum of individual births over a designated time frame; the main subdisciplines of ecology, population ecology and ecosystem ecology, exhibit a difference not only of scale, but of two contrasting paradigms in the field. The former focus on organisms distribution and abundance, while the focus on materials and energy fluxes; the scale of ecological dynamics can operate like a closed system, such as aphids migrating on a single tree, while at the same time remain open with regard to broader scale influences, such as atmosphere or climate.
Hence, ecologists classify ecosystems hierarchically by analyzing data collected from finer scale units, such as vegetation associations and soil types, integrate this information to identify emergent patterns of uniform organization and processes that operate on local to regional and chronological scales. To structure the study of ecology into a conceptually manageable framework, the biological world is organized into a nested hierarchy, ranging in scale from genes, to cells, to tissues, to organs, to organisms, to species, to populations, to communities, to ecosystems, to biomes, up to the level of the biosphere; this framework exhibits non-linear behaviors.
