Post #1

Taxonomic Patterns

Donald A. Windsor

Taxonomic patterns are graphic depictions of 3-tiered nested sets in which the middle sets are represented by the number of their subsets.

        Superset ⊃ Set ⊃ Subset

In biology, a taxonomic pattern is: Family ⊃ Genus ⊃ Species

In bibliographies, a taxonomic pattern is: Author ⊃ Journal ⊃ Articles

In geography, a taxonomic pattern is: Nation ⊃ State ⊃ Counties

In poetry, a taxonomic pattern is: Poem ⊃ Word ⊃ Frequencies

Here is an example from biology. A taxonomic pattern represents every genus in a family as the number of species it contains, with the numbers ranked from the highest to the least and similar numbers placed in the same row extending to the right.

Shown below is the taxonomic pattern for the bird family Threskiornithidae (Ibises, Spoonbills) that has 33 species in 14 genera, 8 of which have multiple species and 6 of which have only 1 species (Monroe & Sibley, page 131).

    5

    4 4 4

    3 3

    2 2

    1 1 1 1 1 1

My first published article on taxonomic patterns explains them in detail. However, it is too long for a blog. It can be obtained by searching its DOI or by clicking this link.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342535123_Distribution_of_Species_among_Genera_in_Taxonomic_Families

If this link does not work, contact me at windsorda@roadrunner.com and I will email a copy to you as an attachment.

References cited:

Monroe, Burt L., Jr. ; Sibley, Charles G. A World Checklist of Birds. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 1993. 394 pages.

Windsor, Donald A. Distribution of species among genera in taxonomic families. SciAesthetics Essays 2020 July: 1-8. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16192.35847

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