Template talk:Biological kingdom classification

Cavalier-Smith 1998
MAybe someone could add this proposition? See the French wiki article about kingdoms' Thanks,Saippuakauppias ⇄ 08:12, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have added Cavalier-Smith 2004 (an update/revision of his 1998 system). Peter coxhead (talk) 11:41, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

New column
I've removed the new column which was added to include the International Society of Protistologists classification (01:08, 31 December 2010). I don't want to enter into an edit war over this, but as the template appears on many pages, we need to be sure before adding extra columns. My arguments against the addition are: Peter coxhead (talk) 11:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The paper explicitly says that these are not intended to be kingdoms.
 * There is no treatment of non-eukaryotes, so if the column were included, the first two rows should be "not treated".
 * This is the first major deliberately phylogenetic classification (which Cavalier-Smith's explicitly isn't). The groups do not correspond in the way the diagram implies. For example, "Protista", "Protoctista" and "Protozoa" in the previous columns are grades not clades. They therefore include the ancestors of multi-cellular organisms. Archaeplastida and Opisthokonta are clades, and so include single-celled ancestors which are placed elsewhere in previous classifications.
 * There is now pretty good evidence that the Protistologists' groups were wrong; particularly Rhizaria. There are good arguments for including historical classifications now thought to be wrong, but I don't think this applies to what appears to be a contemporary classification. When a consensus clade-based classification emerges, it can be added to the table, but I would be inclined to include a heavy border to the left to make it clear that it isn't in principle comparable. (This is different to classifications which have different circumscriptions for groups but share the same principles.)

Copeland
There are two or more works called the "kingdom of organisms" one by Copeland in 1936 (digitalised here), the other by Edward O. Dodson in 1970 (here). The first calls Bacteria Monera, the latter calls Protista+Monera = Mychota, one of three kingdoms. Hence I have corrected the main text. --Squidonius (talk) 10:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Switch places for fungi and plantae?
I'm not usually contributing to Wikipedia, so I'm not sure on how to do this, but to me it seems like the diagram would be a lot clearer if fungi was at the row plantae is right now. That would mean in Copelands system the Protoctista would stick together as one complete unit. It doesn't break any other continuousness either. Is there any specific reason to have fungi between plantae and animalia?

It would then look like this:

instead of the current (note the fungi/plantae rows with the broken up protoctista)

109.228.138.207 (talk) 12:12, 20 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I see the logic of your suggestion, but the ordering also reflects the relationships between the "kingdoms". Fungi are most closely related to animals, so it's also sensible to put them next to one another. There's no ideal linear order. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:43, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

New column and new row
I just added some references and corrected the date of the release of the system of Cavalier-Smith. As this system is constantly updated, it is unsound to indicate the date of the last paper. I would like to add the defunct, but historically important, system of 8 kingdoms developped by Cavalier-Smith (1981, 1993). One column must be added for the system but also a new row to add Archezoa (members are today in the Protozoa kingdom). Is there any objection? --Iossif63 (talk) 21:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that this would give Cavalier-Smith more prominence than is appropriate, i.e. could be said to violate WP:UNDUE. Cavalier-Smith publishes a lot, but what evidence is there that any of his systems have ever been widely used by others? Why is his 8 kingdom system "historically important"? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:35, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Because it is the only complete system (or at least the most widely known) that explicitly incorporated the so-called "amitochondrial" eukaryotes as a primitve grade. The opinion that some protists were primitively without mitochondria (and so very unique) was widely shared at that time. It was an important step for the understanding of the evolution of the eukaryotic empire, before every one finally realize that all these Archezoans were in fact only secondarily amitochondrial. After that, mitochondrion became an element as important as the nucleus in nearly all eukaryogenesis scenarios. --Iossif63 (talk) 13:31, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * That's a good reason to discuss this system somewhere (perhaps added to the Kingdom article). But I don't see that it's a good reason to add it to the template, which is used on many pages.  Here, it seems to me, we should only have systems which were taken up reasonably widely and which the general reader is likely to encounter or have encountered.  This isn't true, so far as I know, of Cavalier-Smith's 8 kingdom system.  Did any textbook adopt this system?  Peter coxhead (talk) 13:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It is a very hard question for me. I am not aware of English textbooks, particularly old ones. But I can't imagine a textbook on the evolution of protists or eukaryotes in general which does not even mention the so-called defunct "Archezoan Hypothesis". Even if the classification was not followed, the hypothesis was nearly consensual and widely discussed. Moreover, I noted that there are two columns for Woese's ancient (never really adopted by anyone else) and modern systems (fashionable nearly since its publication). Doesn't it contradict what you have said about reasonableness? If the addition of Cavalier-Smith's 8-kingdoms system is rejected, shouldn't we consider the deletion of the first column of Woese's systems? Anyway, I will consider add a brief subsection about the Archezoan Hypothesis, as you said. --Iossif63 (talk) 15:56, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I take your point about the first Woese column; also it doesn't add anything to the columns on either side. I'd be happy to remove it. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm just thinking about this now, so I'm putting it to you. What about two different templates? The problem is that this template is used on several articles which subjects are not principally the history of kingdom systems, so this template must be concise. I propose only one column for Woese and only one for Cavalier-Smith too (and maybe with only one reference per column to avoid heaviness), but a link to the article Kingdom (biology) where a more exhaustive template could be found. This second template could develop a little more the different systems that were proposed by the authors as long as these systems, even if not followed, were indeed discussed in the debate. This is justified here because it is at the end of a long section where all these systems are presented and discussed. There would be two columns for Woese, two columns for Cavalier-Smith and many references for each column. What do you think? --Iossif63 (talk) 19:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, this seems a good idea to me. As we've both noted, the widely used template needs to be concise. (It's a pity that there isn't a modern system which can be added, but I suspect that there won't be for some time, if at all.) But in the article it's useful to compare a lot of systems, even the "non-kingdom" systems emerging from work on the phylogeny of the eukaryotes. I certainly support this approach. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)


 * New template Template:Full biological kingdom classification inserted in the summary of page Kingdom (biology). --Iossif63 (talk) 18:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Template simplified with only one ref per column and only one column per author. Links corrected. --Iossif63 (talk) 19:09, 8 October 2012 (UTC)