phylum
Sign in to saveIn biology, a phylum (; : phyla) is a level of classification, or taxonomic rank, that is below kingdom and above class. Traditionally, in botany the term division has been used instead of phylum, although the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants accepts the terms as equivalent. Depending on definitions, the animal kingdom Animalia contains about 32 phyla, the plant kingdom Plantae contains about 14 phyla, and the fungus kingdom Fungi contains about eight phyla. Current research in phylogenetics is uncovering the relationships among phyla within larger clades like Ec
AI overview
A phylum is a major grouping level in biology's classification system that sits between the broad category of kingdom and the more specific category of class. Understanding phyla matters because it helps scientists organize the tremendous diversity of life—for example, the animal kingdom alone contains around 32 different phyla—making it easier to study relationships and understand how different organisms are related to each other.
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Article
14 sectionsContents
- General description
- Definition based on genetic relation
- Definition based on body plan
- Known phyla
- Animals
- Plants
- Fungi
- Protists
- Bacteria
- Archaea
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
In biology, a phylum (; : phyla) is a level of classification, or taxonomic rank, that is below kingdom and above class. Traditionally, in botany the term division has been used instead of phylum, although the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants accepts the terms as equivalent. Depending on definitions, the animal kingdom Animalia contains about 32 phyla, the plant kingdom Plantae contains about 14 phyla, and the fungus kingdom Fungi contains about eight phyla. Current research in phylogenetics is uncovering the relationships among phyla within larger clades like Ecdysozoa and Embryophyta.
== General description == The term phylum was coined in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel from the Greek (, 'race, stock'), related to (, 'tribe, clan'). Haeckel noted that species constantly evolved into new species that seemed to retain few consistent features among themselves and therefore few features that distinguished them as a group ("a self-contained unity"): "perhaps such a real and completely self-contained unity is the aggregate of all species which have gradually evolved from one and the same common original form, as, for example, all vertebrates. We name this aggregate [a] [i.e., stock / tribe] ()." In plant taxonomy, August W. Eichler (1883) classified plants into five groups named divisions, a term that remains in use today for groups of plants, algae and fungi. The definitions of zoological phyla have changed from their origins in the six Linnaean classes and the four of Georges Cuvier.