University of Guyana

Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry

Entomology

Week Two

Systematic Entomology
Systematic entomology or insect systematics is the study of the diversity of insects and their
inter-relationships. Systematics can be subdivided into two fields,
 taxonomy - Insect taxonomy is the science that deals with recognizing, describing, and
naming species and groups of species, and the classification of insects into a ranked and
named system (e.g., species, genus, family, order, etc.) that aims to reflect a natural
evolutionary history.
 Phylogenetics - Phylogenetics is the study of the relatedness of organisms or groups of
organisms based on shared ancestry. The study of the distribution of insects based on
environmental, geological factors and phylogenetic relationships is termed biogeography.

Fossil Record

Insects are the most evolutionarily successful group of organisms in the 4-billion-year history of
life on earth, with perhaps 5 million species alive today and untold millions of extinct species.
Although fossils of insects are not as abundant as has been found for some other types of
organisms, the insect fossil record extends back for 400 million years, making them among the
oldest terrestrial animals known, and the fossils contribute unique insight into the evolutionary
history of insects. Key features that gave rise to their spectacular success, notably flight and
complete metamorphosis, originated at least 300 and 250 million years ago, respectively.
FOSSILS

Fossils are generally, but not necessarily, extinct species whose remains have been preserved for
thousands to millions of years. The remains are most commonly mineralized replacements of
original tissues. In rare situations portions of the original organism are preserved. Remains of
apparently existing (or extant) species that are thousands to several million years old are
sometimes called sub fossils.

Earth’s fossils are dominated by organisms from marine continental shelves, where deep
sediments efficiently preserved durable calcified parts such as shells and skeletons. Terrestrial
life is less well known in the fossil record and largely is preserved as bones, leaves, and pollen in
freshwater sediments.

Well-preserved insects, by comparison, are rare; their occurrence depends on conditions under
which the sediments were fine grained, anoxic (i.e., lacking oxygen), and deposited rapidly but
without significant disturbance.

Insects preserved in such sediments were aquatic or semiaquatic and died in situ
(autochthonous), or their bodies were transported via winds or water from surrounding habitats.

SIGNIFICANCE OF FOSSILS

There are at least five reasons why fossils are uniquely significant for understanding the
evolutionary history of organisms:

1. Fossils provide the only direct record of extinct lineages, such as giant dragonfly-like
forms from the Carboniferous and Permian
2. Fossils reveal patterns and timing of extinctions and radiations. Although insects have
been affected by some mass extinction events, major lineages of insects appear
particularly resistant to extinction.
3. Fossils provide the only direct information on the ages of lineages. Because there is never
assurance that a fossil is the earliest, original occurrence of a taxon, the age of the earliest
fossil is the minimum age of a taxon. This information, in conjunction with the
 phylogenetic positions of all fossils in a group, can be used to estimate actual ages and
significant gaps in the fossil record. Such information is further useful for calibrating and
then estimating rates of change, such as rates of genetic change among living species and
dates of divergence.
4. Fossils may assist in reconstructing the phylogeny of a group. While fossils are widely
acknowledged to possess combinations of characters unique from those of living species,
their significance in reconstructing phylogenetic relationships is controversial.
Nonetheless, fossils also provide the only direct evidence for the evolutionary sequence
of character change.
5. Fossils can provide evidence that a taxon is old enough for its distribution to have been
affected

PRESERVATION OF FOSSIL INSECTS

The small size and external cuticle of insects are largely responsible for the many modes of
fossilization, which are much more varied than for vertebrates and plants.

Insect fossils are most commonly encountered as impressions or compressions in sediments

The putatively most ancient DNA in the geological record is reported from insects preserved in
amber, but authenticity of the DNA is disputed by those who unsuccessfully attempted to
replicate these results. Exceptional preservation is also seen in some insects preserved free in
sediments.
Classification

Classification has two meanings in English the process by which things are grouped into
classes by shared characters and the arrangement of those classes.

Identification is the process of observing characters and thereby classifying things.

Biological classifications are arrangements of organisms. The ability to classify is common to all
animals, for to survive animals must group other organisms into at least three classes:

 Those to be eaten,
 those to be avoided,
 and those to associate with, especially members of their own class.

For scientists,classification is formalized into a nested or hierarchical set of hypotheses:

Then there is the hypothesis of a group. Groups of biological organisms are called taxa (taxon,
singular) and these taxa are hierarchically arranged in our classifications. Taxa in a classification
have rank, with the basic (basal, bottom) rank being designated as species. Some of the higher
ranks are genus, family, order, class, phylum, and kingdom.

Nomenclature is a system of names along with the procedures for creating and maintaining that
system. Classification, in its second definition, is the structure for nomenclature, being the model
on which names are arranged. Names form the essential language of biology and are the means
that we use to communicate about our science.

NAMES AND CLASSIFICATION

Names are tags. Tags are words, short sequences of symbols (letters) used in place of something
complex, which would require many more words to describe. Hence, tags save time and space.
Instead of a long description, we use a short tag.

A scientific name differs from a common name in that the scientific name is a unique tag. In
nonscientific languages, such as English, there may be multiple tags (common names) for the
same organism. For example, imagine the various words in English that are used to describe H.
sapiens.

Scientific names are unique within a classification, there being only one valid scientific name for
a particular concept, and each concept has only one valid scientific name.

If a scientific name were only a unique key used for storing and retrieving information, it would
be just like a social security number. H. sapiens is another unique key used to store and retrieve
information about humans, but that key also places that information into a hierarchical
classification.

Hierarchical classifications allow for the storage at each node of the hierarchy of the information
common to the subordinate nodes. Hence, redundant data, which would be spread throughout a
non hierarchical system, are eliminated.

Thus systematists pack a lot of information into their names and users can get a lot from them.
Scientific names are hypotheses, not proven facts. Systematists may and frequently do disagree
about hypotheses.