John Lindley provided an early definition of systematics in 1830, although he wrote of "systematic botany" rather than using the term "systematics". In 1970 Michener
et al. defined "systematic biology" and "
taxonomy" (terms that are often confused and used interchangeably) in relationship to one another as follows: Systematic biology (hereafter called simply systematics) is the field that (a) provides scientific names for organisms, (b) describes them, (c) preserves collections of them, (d) provides classifications for the organisms, keys for their identification, and data on their distributions, (e) investigates their evolutionary histories, and (f) considers their environmental adaptations. This is a field with a long history that in recent years has experienced a notable renaissance, principally with respect to theoretical content. Part of the theoretical material has to do with evolutionary areas (topics e and f above), the rest relates especially to the problem of classification. Taxonomy is that part of Systematics concerned with topics (a) to (d) above. The term "taxonomy" was coined by
Augustin Pyramus de Candolle while the term "systematic" was coined by
Carl Linnaeus the father of taxonomy. Taxonomy, systematic biology, systematics, biosystematics, scientific classification, biological classification, phylogenetics: At various times in history, all these words have had overlapping, related meanings. However, in modern usage, they can all be considered synonyms of each other. Europeans tend to use the terms "systematics" and "biosystematics" for the study of biodiversity as a whole, whereas North Americans tend to use "taxonomy" more frequently. However, taxonomy, and in particular
alpha taxonomy, is more specifically the identification, description, and naming (i.e. nomenclature) of organisms,{{cite book |last= Fortey |first= Richard |author-link= Richard Fortey |year=2008 |title= Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum |location= London Systematics uses taxonomy as a primary tool in understanding, as nothing about an organism's relationships with other living things can be understood without it first being properly studied and described in sufficient detail to identify and classify it correctly.{{cite journal | last1 = Zhang | first1 = G. | last2 = Feng
Phenetics was an attempt to determine the relationships of organisms through a measure of overall similarity, making no distinction between
plesiomorphies (shared ancestral traits) and
apomorphies (derived traits). From the late-20th century onwards, it was superseded by
cladistics, which rejects plesiomorphies in attempting to resolve the
phylogeny of Earth's various organisms through time. systematists generally make extensive use of
molecular biology and of
computer programs to study organisms. ==Taxonomic characters==