INTRODUCTION

Carolus Linnaeus (23 May 1707 10 January 1778), also known as Carl von Linn or Carl
Linnaeus. Swedish botanist, zoologist, and taxonomist. Established conventions for naming
living organisms still in general scientific use todayin particular, he popularizedbinomial
nomenclature, which had first been developed by the Bauhin brothers (Gaspard and Johann
Bauhin) more than a century before. He was the first to use binomial names consistently. As a
young man he was a creationist, but he later developed an evolutionary theory of his own.

Carolus Linnaeus was born at Stenbrohult, in the province of Smland in southern Sweden. His
father was a gardening enthusiast, and this interest in plants seems to have rubbed off on the son.
His family wanted Linnaeus to enter the priesthood, but he instead chose to study medicine and
entered the University of Lund in 1727. The next year he transferred to the University of
Uppsala, where he focused his attention on collecting and studying plants, which at that time was
nothing strange for a medical student since doctors were then expected to be familiar with a wide
range of medicinal plants.
In 1730, he joined the faculty at Uppsala and began lecturing on botany. Two years later he made
an expedition to Lapland in northernmost Scandinavia, a region then almost unknown to
European science. There he made an inventory of the plant life and investigated the indigenes,
the Lapps. He later posed for a famous portrait (left), in which he is dressed in Lapp garb and
holds a shaman's drum. In 1734 he mounted another expedition, this time to central Sweden.
The next year, he moved from Sweden to Holland where he made important professional
connections that later assisted him in his career. There he supervised the publication of the first
edition of the Systema Naturae (the slim beginnings of what would in later editions become his
vast catalog of nature), the Genera Plantarum (which describes 935 plant genera), and the Flora
Lapponica, where he reported on the plants he had found in Lapland.
It was in the 1735 edition of the Systema Naturaethat he made the memorable decision to group
apes and human beings in the same category, something no other naturalist had dared to do. This
classification was important in prompting later writers to propose that humans had actually

evolved

from

apes.

After his return to Sweden, in 1738, he continued his great inventory of life. With the aid of
correspondents who sent him specimens from all corners of the globe, he greatly expanded the
number of plants and animals recognized by science. These were all assigned a place in what was
to become known as the Linnaean taxonomy, the first version of the system of scientific
classification employed by biologists today. For many of these he coined names that are still in
general use, including the scientific name for human beings (Homo sapiens).
In the Systema Naturae ("The System of Nature"), he not only classified plants and animals
within two kingdoms (Regnum animale and Regnum vegetabile), but also placed minerals in a
third kingdom (Regnum lapideum). Within Regnum vegetabile, plants were grouped according
the number of their stamens and pistils. The tenth edition of this book (1758), the one in which
animals

are

first

assigned

binomial

names,

is

considered

the

starting

point

of zoological nomenclature.
The first edition of Species Plantarum ("The Species of Plants") was published in 1753. This
work is the beginning of all formal botanical taxonomy. No plant names appearing in any earlier
literature are now considered to be validly published. In it, a binomial nomenclature for plants is
used consistently for the first time. However, the groupings he created for plants have largely
been abandoned in modern classification.
The divisions into which he placed animals have held up rather better, although many changes
have since been made. But Linnaeus was far more important as a deviser of means, than as an
achiever of ends. His method of classification was widely embraced by all naturalists, and in a
somewhat expanded form remains the standard among biologists today.

Discussion
On biological frontiers, a similar challenge lurks: the vast majority of species exist in a sort of
'dark matter' biomass. But new tools are shedding light on the microscopic organisms that,
although invisible to our eyes, constitute the "most diverse and abundant" life forms on earth.
Much of the tree of life remains undefined because these microorganisms fail to grow in a petri
dish in a lab environment. Advances in genetic sequencing enable identification of the genome
from a single microbe, eliminating the need to multiply the sample by culturing before genetic
analysis can succeed.
A report in Nature details the use of this technology to map 201 genomes. It is a small but
decisive step towards understanding the millions of undescribed species around us. Tanja Woyke,
senior author on the article, notes:
To try to capture 50 percent of just the currently known phylogenetic diversity, we would have to
sequence 20,000 more genomes, and these would have to be selected based on being members of
underrepresented branches on the tree. And, to be sure, these are only what are known to exist.
But the first couple hundred microbes have already drawn 29 more branches onto the tree of life.
Although the existence of these species was known from previous RNA surveys, their place in
the family of lifeforms was not fully charted until these genomes were available. After aligning
the genomes to the branches of known phyla, the research team recommends 29 additional phyla
be created to describe the new diversity.
Keep in mind that phyla represent early splits of the branches. To put it in perspective: there are
only about 35 known phyla in the animal kingdom and 12 in the plant kingdom. So 29 new phyla
represents a huge leap forward in our knowledge about the diversity of the microbial domains of
Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya.

Perhaps this study will do even more than add branches to the tree, though. One shocking result
of the new genomic data, as described by corresponding author Philip Hugenholtz:
For me the most surprising findings were the numerous instances of genes moving between
domains (Bacteria, Archaea, Eucarya) that encode functions that were previously thought to be
highly conserved within a domain.
This suggests that life cannot so easily be understood merely by a tree structure, with shared
characteristics dropping away as life evolves in distinct directions. Instead, we see life re-using
solutions that work for one lifeform in another context.

Conclusion
Answering questions like those is going to take a lot of time, a lot of research, a lot of papers,
and likely a lot of argument in the global biological community. If an entirely new taxonomical
kingdom is established and it turns out everything you learned in high school was significantly
incomplete, we'll certainly let you know.