Integrative taxonomy – Methods and Applications

Taxonomy is the discipline in biology aimed at characterizing and naming taxa and taxonomy plays a major role in conserving biodiversity. The central unit of taxonomy is species and generating biological information requires naming of species. Thousands of species are being named every year since the advent of Linnaean nomenclature in 1758. Alpha taxonomy relates to species level characterizations whereas beta taxonomy is related to higher level studies. The advent of new tools for species level identification of groups of organisms has contributed immensely to the rapid development of this branch of science. DNA sequencing technologies, access to museum collections, information about phyogenetics and phylogeography, advances in evolutionary studies and computer tomography have revolutionized conventional taxonomy in such a way that conventional taxonomy could be supplemented and complemented with information generated from all the above approaches. Species delimitation and a scientific consensus on naming could be achieved now by using a combination of different methods along with traditional taxonomy tools and this is the objective of integrative taxonomy. The term “integrative taxonomy” was coined by Dayrat, 2005 to describe a comprehensive approach to naming species.