Question

What is a taxonomic key and how is it used?

Answer 1

Hint: Taxon, plural Taxa, any biological classification unit used in science, or taxonomy. Taxa are organized in a hierarchy from kingdom to subspecies, usually including several lower-ranked taxa in a given taxon.

Complete answer:
The taxonomic keys help in identifying a novel organism. The flora and fauna discovered will take a very long time in their recognition. A key is responsible for providing a structure useful for sorting a voluminous deal of information. This helps the user to quickly skip over unrelated species which are not similar to any organism. A key has many couplets along with it. Each of the couplet has two opposite details plant features. The couplets of the key help the taxonomist to choose the best match for the newly discovered organism. The two alternative halves of a couplet enable the taxonomist to deal with different types or varieties of plants/ animals/ organism for its nomenclature thereafter. The alternatives of couplets that were not selected are not considered. The key is constructed with contrasting alternatives and thus is called a dichotomous key.

In the natural world, dichotomous keys allow their users to identify objects reliably. Based on their characteristics, dichotomous keys are most often used to identify plant and animal species. They can also, however, be used to identify minerals and any type of object that can be recognized by a known set of observable characteristics in theory.

Note: A taxonomic key is designed in a way that it starts with observing large and important features which are able to divide organisms into few large groups. The couplets that divide the groups into various smaller subgroups and use every little detail to help the user.