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How Organisms Are Classified: Classification

The document discusses various topics related to biological classification including: 1. Organisms are classified into groups based on shared characteristics and their evolutionary relationships. Species are grouped from the most general (kingdom) to the most specific (species). 2. The five kingdoms are animals, plants, fungi, protoctists, and prokaryotes. Key characteristics define each kingdom. 3. Organisms within the animal and plant kingdoms can be further classified into phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species based on additional physical traits.

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Rahil Bhavan
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132 views

How Organisms Are Classified: Classification

The document discusses various topics related to biological classification including: 1. Organisms are classified into groups based on shared characteristics and their evolutionary relationships. Species are grouped from the most general (kingdom) to the most specific (species). 2. The five kingdoms are animals, plants, fungi, protoctists, and prokaryotes. Key characteristics define each kingdom. 3. Organisms within the animal and plant kingdoms can be further classified into phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species based on additional physical traits.

Uploaded by

Rahil Bhavan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Classification

 There are millions of species of organisms on Earth

 A species is defined as a group of organisms that can reproduce to produce fertile offspring

 These species can be classified into groups by the features that they share e.g. all mammals
have bodies covered in hair, feed young from mammary glands and have external ears
(pinnas)

How Organisms are Classified

 Organisms share features because they originally descend from a common ancestor
 Example: all mammals have bodies covered in hair, feed young from mammary glands
and have external ears (pinnas)
 Originally, organisms were classified using morphology (the overall form and shape of
the organism, e.g. whether it had wings or legs) and anatomy (the detailed body structure
as determined by dissection)
 As technology advanced, microscopes, knowledge of biochemistry and eventually DNA
sequencing allowed us to classify organisms using a more scientific approach
 Studies of DNA sequences of different species show that the more similar the base
sequences in the DNA of two species, the more closely related those two species
are (and the more recent in time their common ancestor is)
 This means that the base sequences in a mammal’s DNA are more closely related to
all other mammals than to any other vertebrate groups

 As DNA base sequences are used to code for amino acid sequences in proteins, the
similarities in amino acid sequences can also be used to determine how closely related
organisms are

The Binomial System

 Organisms were first classified by a Swedish naturalist called Linnaeus in a way that


allows the subdivision of living organisms into smaller and more specialised groups
 The species in these groups have more and more features in common the more subdivided
they get
 He named organisms in Latin using the binomial system where the scientific name of an
organism is made up of two parts starting with the genus (always given a capital letter)
and followed by the species (starting with a lower case letter)
 When typed binomial names are always in italics (which indicates they are Latin)
e.g. Homo sapiens
 The sequence of classification
is: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species
Features of Organisms

Common Cell Structures

 The cells of all living organisms contain the following:

o Cytoplasm

o Cell membrane

o DNA as genetic material (either found in the nucleus or free in the cytoplasm)


 

The Five Kingdoms

 The first division of living things in the classification system is to put them into one of five
kingdoms. They are:

o Animals

o Plants

o Fungi

o Protoctists

o Prokaryotes

 Main features of all animals:

o they are multicellular

o their cells contain a nucleus but no cell walls or chloroplasts

o they feed on organic substances made by other living things


Main features of all plants:

 they are multicellular

 their cells contain a nucleus, chloroplasts and cellulose cell walls

 they all feed by photosynthesis


Fungi, Protoctists & Prokaryotes

 Main features of all fungi (e.g. moulds, mushrooms, yeast)

o usually multicellular

o cells have nuclei and cell walls not made from cellulose

o do not photosynthesize but feed by saprophytic (on dead or decaying material) or


parasitic (on live material) nutrition

 Main features of all Protoctists (e.g. Amoeba, Paramecium, Plasmodium)

o most are unicellular but some are multicellular

o all have a nucleus, some may have cell walls and chloroplasts

o meaning some protoctists photosynthesise and some feed on organic


substances made by other living things

 
Main features of all Prokaryotes (bacteria, blue-green algae)

 often unicellular

 cells have cell walls (not made of cellulose) and cytoplasm but no nucleus or mitochondria


Classifying Animals

Vertebrates

 All vertebrates have a backbone. There are 5 classes of vertebrates:


Invertebrates

 One of the morphological characteristics used to classify invertebrates is whether they have
legs or not

 All invertebrates with jointed legs are part of the phylum Arthropods

 They are classified further into the following classes:

 
Classifying Plants

Ferns & Flowering Plants

 At least some parts of any plant are green, caused by the presence of the
pigment chlorophyll which absorbs energy from sunlight for the process of photosynthesis

 The plant kingdom includes organisms such as ferns and flowering plants

Ferns:

 Have leaves called fronds

 Do not produce flowers but instead reproduce by spores produced on the underside of


fronds

Flowering plants:

 Reproduce sexually by means of flowers and seeds

 Seeds are produced inside the ovary found at the base of the flower

 Can be divided into two groups – monocotyledons and dicotyledons

How to distinguish between monocotyledons and dicotyledons:

1) FLOWERS

 Flowers from monocotyledons contain petals in multiples of 3

 Flowers from dicotyledons contain petals in multiples of 4 or 5

2) LEAVES

 Leaves from monocotyledons have parallel leaf veins


 Leaves from dicotyledons have reticulated leaf veins (meaning that they are all
interconnected and form a web-like network throughout the leaf)

Viruses

Features of Viruses

 Viruses are not part of any classification system as they are not considered living things

 They do not carry out the seven life processes for themselves, instead they take over a host
cell’s metabolic pathways in order to make multiple copies of themselves

 Virus structure is simply genetic material (RNA or DNA) inside a protein coat

 
Dichotomous Keys

Constructing & Using a Key

 Keys are used to identify organisms based on a series of questions about their features

 Dichotomous means ‘branching into two’ and it leads the user through to the name of the
organism by giving two descriptions at a time and asking them to choose

 Each choice leads the user onto another two descriptions

 In order to successfully navigate a key, you need to pick a single organism to start with
and follow the statements from the beginning until you find the name

 You then pick another organism and start at the beginning of the key again, repeating until
all organisms are named

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