Figuring out Where Things Belong a.k.a. Classification

As we're doing the biodiversity surveys of our backyards, something to keep in mind is how does everything fit together?

There are several ways to think about that, but today we'll concentrate on classification. In other words, how is everything related to everything else?

Good old Aristotle, that Greek philosopher from a LONG time ago, laid the roots (pun intended) for modern day scientific classification, including using the terms 'Genus' and 'Species.'

Then a long (but not LONG) time ago, a dude named Linnaeus put most everything was put into either the plant or animal kingdom. That was fairly simple.

"Hey, organism, do you move?"

"Yes, then you must be an animal."

But of course there are always a few organisms that don't quite fit the mold (pun intended), so over the decades, classification schemes changed, with some lumping and some splitting. I won't go into details. If you want the details, click here.

Today, we're left with the modern version of classification. First, a diagram from a K-12 school that I really like for its simplicity:

So we still have plants and animals, but we also have fungi, bacterium, and protoctista. Note that sometimes the Protoctista are called Protista and that the Bacterium are also called Monera

In the middle of the star is the way we do the organization:
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

You probably had to memorize these for ninth grade science. What words did you use to remember the acronym: KPCOFGS?

You probably didn't have access to this cool website, which suggests acronyms for you to use.
For example, would you use:

1. Kids Playing Chicken on Freeways Get Smashed
2. King Phil Cleans Octopi For Gene Simmons
3. Keep Paying Casey Off For Gun Sales

You can leave your answer in the comments. Or perhaps you have a better one.

So this is how it works. Everything fits into a kingdom. Then each kingdom has several phyla (the plural of phylum; yes, those years of Latin in high school did actually teach me something!).
The phyla contain classes, and so on.


The diagram above shows how a leopard is classified. It is a member of the Kingdom Animalia (it does move!), Phylum Chordata (it has a backbone), Class Mammalia (air breathing vertebrate animals with hair, 3 ear bones, and working mammary glands in females), Order Carnivoa (placental mammals and meat eaters), Family Felidae (the cats), Genus Panthera, and Species pardus.

No other animal but the leopard is known as Panthera pardus. (Typically the Genus and species names are italicized. Genus is capitalized, species is not. And plural of genus is genera. (Latin was a more complicated language than English.))

Here's another view of how the kingdoms fit together:


Does anyone else find it slightly unnerving that humans (and all animals) are more related to fungi than plants?

If you're read this far, give yourself a pat on the back. I'll leave you with a little picture. Have a good day. Where ever you fit into it!

Expanding the Treehouse

Although Desert Boy and I still go and visit the old tree house (and remember the slide fondly; and sit on stumps and talk about life; and discuss the one-step ladder used to get up onto it), Desert Boy was ready to further construction on his new tree house.

So he talked to his Daddy and convinced him to help out. That was a good idea, as Daddy had some creative ideas. He brought back a couple of palettes to make walls, along with other assorted wood. He even bought nails that were the right length. What a novel idea!

Desert Boy was eager to help. Nothing on the tree house is level or straight, so attaching walls was a bit of a challenge.

A side brace helped. Then another wall went up, and the two walls were attached with a top brace. It was starting to look like a real tree house! But Desert Boy wanted more.

He wanted a roof.

He got a roof. Not just any roof, but a special sun roof for the tree house! We do things in style around here!

Finally it was time to paint, the part Desert Boy has been talking about for days. He did a little--but still has a long ways to go. He also wants to make signs. I think that might be a good activity to keep him occupied for hours in the upcoming weeks.

Dirt is Good

My helpers aerating the soil in the garden. We've planted some peas, spinach, and red beets. It's probably too early for the spinach and red beets, but we just planted one square each. We're back to the Square Foot Gardening method. It worked well enough last year and I really like the tidiness of the system. Not that I'm a particularly tidy gardener. As we were cleaning up the garden, we found onions, carrots, and red beets from last year. All still edible. And the cilantro has done a good job of reseeding itself.

Check out Desert Girl's irrigating boots. She was the only one in the family that didn't have irrigating boots, and I just couldn't resist. I imagine that she'll get some pretty good use out of them this summer.

Desert Girl is building up her immunity by eating some dirt. Dirt is good.

Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #2

Do you have your trees figured out? Even if you don't have them all named, you can assign Tree1, Tree2, Tree3, etc. to the ones you don't know and keep working on figuring them out.

While you're enjoying the trees, it's time to start Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #2:

WHAT BIRDS DO YOU SEE IN YOUR YARD?

We're in migratory bird season, which means that there are a lot of birds making their way from the warmer southern climes to their breeding grounds up north.

In fact, I noticed lots of snow birds on the road this week. Snow birds=RVs that spend the winter in the south and the summer in the north. People have already learned a lot from birds! (Sorry, I couldn't help digressing.)

One thing you might want to do as you write down the birds you see (and yes, I strongly recommend writing them down in a dedicated biodiversity journal) is to note when you first saw them in 2011. Then you can compare that with another year (assuming you'll keep doing this!) and see if the birds are coming earlier or later or not at all. These records can actually prove to be quite important. Ornithology, the study of birds, is heavily reliant upon amateur observations, and many databases are comprised primarily of sightings from citizen scientists.

Another cool thing about getting into the habit of observing the birds in your yard is that you don't have to travel far, but some of the birds have come from or are heading thousands of miles away.

So leave a note--what birds are you seeing? And what birds have traveled/will travel the farthest?

My Backyard Trees

First off, what is a backyard?

For some people this is easy to define--it's the yard around their house. But what if you live in an apartment in the city on the twenty-eighth floor? If there's a nearby park, you can call that your backyard. Or your friend's yard out in the suburbs. Or the greater area. You can decide what to call your backyard for the Biodiversity Challenge.

So have you figured out what trees are in your yard? I was a little surprised when I listed mine: ash, elm, two different looking junipers, catalpa, apricot, peach, Lombardy poplar and white poplar. What surprised me? There are quite a few different species of ashes, elms, and junipers, and I'm not entirely sure what we have. I'm going to have to take a closer look.

That might not be the easiest right now, given that the trees have no leaves on them, but there are clues. Last year's leaves, the bark, the height, the shape, and more can be very helpful. Or I can just wait a few weeks!

Are the trees in your yard native? From a biodiversity standpoint, that's the best. Sadly, none of the trees in my yard are native. The only native trees around here at this elevation grow next to the creeks. If there isn't water, we don't have trees, we just have shrubs or grasses or other plants. I think it's very important to find out if species are native or not, so I encourage you as you make your list to put asterisks next to the species that are non-native.

Okay, I want to find out more about what's in your yard! Please leave a comment about the trees you find there, or what tree you would like to plant in your yard and why.