All of us who care about ecology and the environment know the number of different plant species that inhabit our planet. Fortunately, there is the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature to regulate the names of taxa of green plants.
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Precisely, a short time ago, we mentioned in The Green Blog the difficulties in which researchers find themselves in making very precise statistics in terms of biodiversity.
However, we now want to explain that there is a Coded International Botanical Nomenclature which is responsible for regulating the names of taxa of green plants, whether terrestrial plants or green algae. Of course, now we wonder what is a taxon?
Well, a taxon is called a series of related organisms, which after a certain classification have been grouped together. These organisms are assigned a name, type and description. The taxon is therefore a concrete specimen. The name assigned to the taxon is in Latin and is associated with the author who made the classification.
the Botanical Code of Nomenclature (ICBN) is the set of rules that order the taxonomic nomenclature (taxonomy is the science responsible for defining and classifying taxa) of all plant species in order to determine a unique name for each plant taxon, a name that will be valid internationally .
Image: micro-water
But also, the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature it is also responsible for regulating the names of other eukaryotic species, which are studied in departments of botany.
Some examples of so-called eukaryotes: estramenopiles (brown algae, golden algae, aquatic moulds, etc.), alveoli, red algae, glaucophytes, fungi (chytrids, zygomycetes, ascomycetes, basidiomycetes).
Be informed that the existence of this International Code of Botanical Nomenclature It is of utmost importance to all environmentalists. But, even more interestingly, we know that the Code was last enacted and corrected in the edition of the “Vienna Code”, name applied to it because it was precisely in Vienna that the 17th International Botanical Congress was held in 2005. It was there that the previous rules were repealed and the date of the beginning of modern systematic botany was been set retroactively.
The fundamental principle of Coded International Botanical Nomenclature is to determine priority in order to preserve the names which were given in the first of the descriptions published in 1753 by Carlos Linnaeus, known as “father of ecology”.
although that International Code of Botanical Nomenclature only applies to the realm”plant” (of plants) it’s still wonderful to know that we have a coded capable of ordering, defining and naming each of the plant species on our planet.