Editing Evolutionary taxonomy (section)

{{Short description|Form of biological classification}}
{{Technical|date=July 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2019}}

'''Evolutionary taxonomy''', '''evolutionary systematics''' or '''Darwinian classification''' is a branch of [[biological classification]] that seeks to classify [[organism]]s using a combination of [[Phylogenetics|phylogenetic]] relationship (shared descent), progenitor-descendant relationship (serial descent), and degree of [[evolutionary]] change. This type of [[Taxonomy (biology)|taxonomy]] may consider whole [[taxa]] rather than single [[species]], so that groups of species can be inferred as giving rise to new groups.<ref name="Mayr_Bock_2002">{{Citation |last1=Mayr |first1=Ernst |author-link=Ernst W. Mayr |last2=Bock |first2=W.J. |year=2002 |title=Classifications and other ordering systems |journal=J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Research |volume=40 |issue=4 |pages=169–94 |doi=10.1046/j.1439-0469.2002.00211.x |name-list-style=amp |url=http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/EvSy/PDF/Bock-2002-class-Mayr.pdf}}</ref> The concept found its most well-known form in the [[modern synthesis (20th century)|modern evolutionary synthesis]] of the early 1940s.

Evolutionary taxonomy differs from strict pre-Darwinian [[Linnaean taxonomy]] (producing orderly lists only) in that it builds evolutionary trees. While in [[phylogenetic nomenclature]] each taxon must consist of a single ancestral node and all its descendants, evolutionary taxonomy allows for groups to be excluded from their parent taxa (e.g. dinosaurs are not considered to ''include'' birds, but to have ''given rise'' to them), thus permitting [[Paraphyly|paraphyletic]] taxa.<ref name="grant2003">{{citation | doi = 10.3732/ajb.90.9.1263 | pmid = 21659226 | title = Incongruence between cladistic and taxonomic systems | year = 2003 | author = Grant, V. | journal = American Journal of Botany | volume = 90 | issue = 9 | pages = 1263–70 | doi-access =  }}</ref><ref name="aub15">{{cite journal | last1 = Aubert | first1 = D | year = 2015 | title = A formal analysis of phylogenetic terminology: Towards a reconsideration of the current paradigm in systematics | journal = Phytoneuron | volume = 2015–66 | pages = 1–54 }}</ref>