CHAPTER 1

THE LIVING WORLD

• The living world comprises of diverse type of
organisms.

• Biology is the branch of science which deals with

the study of living things. Aristotle is considered as
the founder of biology.

• The term biology is proposed by Lamarck.

• Biology is divided into 2 main branches- Botany

and Zoology.

• Botany is a branch of biology which deals with the

study of plants.

• Zoology is a branch of biology which deals with the

study of animals.

• Aristotle is considered as the “father of zoology”.

• Theophrastus is considered as the “father of
botany”. He was a student of Aristotle.

• There are 2 types of objects in the world living and

non living.

• Life is the property that distinguishes living things

from non living things.

Characteristics of living organisms.

 Basic characteristics exhibited by living organisms
are growth, reproduction, ability to sense
environment, metabolism, cellular organization,
and consciousness.

Growth
 Increase in body mass considered as growth.
• Growth of an organism has two characteristics.
Increase in mass
Increase in number
 Multicellular organisms- grow by cell division.
• In plants , growth by cell division occurs
throughout their life span.
• In animals, the growth by cell division occurs only
upto a certain age. Thereafter, cell division is seen
in certain tissues to replace the lost cells.
• Unicellular organisms also grows by cell division.
• Non living objects such as mountains, boulders,
sand mounds, etc also grow. These non living
objects are grown by the accumulation of material
on their surface. Therefore growth cannot be
taken as a defining property of living organisms
alone. A dead organism does not grow

Reproduction
 It is a characteristic of living organisms . In living
organisms, reproduction means the production of
new individuals similar to the parents.
• A multicellular organism reproduces by 3 ways-
sexual ,asexual and vegetative ,method.
Examples
• Fungi – asexual spores
• Hydra and yeast – budding
• Planaria – regeneration
• Filamentous algae & fungi – fragmentation

• In unicellular organisms like bacteria, amoeba,

unicellular algae etc reproduction is synonymous
with growth , ie increase in number of cells.
Therefore in unicellular organisms there is no
distinction in the usage of the terms growth and
reproduction.

Metabolism
 The sum total of all the chemical reactions
occuring in our body is called metabolism.
• Metabolism is a defining feature in all living
organisms.

Cellular organization
 All unicellular or multicellular organisms are made
up of one or more cells.
• Cellular organisaton of the body is the defining
feature of life forms.
 Consciousness
 All living organisms have the ability to sense their
surroundings or environment and respond to
these environmental stimuli. Which could be
physical, chemical and biological.

Examples:-
• Human beings sense the environment through
sense organs.
• Plants respond to external factors like light,
temperature, water, pollutants, other organisms
etc.

• In both plants and animals, photoperiod(duration

of light) affects the reproduction in seasonal
breeders.
• A human being is the only organism having ” self
consciousness” ie aware of himself…therefore
consciousness is the defining property of the living
organisms.
• All living organisms (present , past and future) are
linked to one another by the sharing of common
genetic material to varying degree.
 Diversity in the living world
• All living organisms which live on earth together
make up the natural diversity of life in the world.
• This natural diversity of life on earth is generally
called biological diversity or .

• The branch of science which deals with

identification, nomenclature and classification of
organisms is called taxonomy or systematics.

• Method of naming is called nomenclature.

• Naming of living organisms is one of the important
features of taxonomy.
• Names may be of 2 types.
Local names and scientific names.

• Locally used names are called local

names(vernacular names or common names)
• These names vary from place to place.
• These names created confusion because different
species may be known by the same name.

• It is a method of naming by which an organism is

known by a scientific name having 2
components(words).
• It was first introduced by Carolus Linnaeus in
1758.
• In a binomial name, the first component(word) is
called generic name or genus name and the
second component(word) is called specific name
or species name.

• Anyone can study, describe, identify and give a

name to an organism provided certain universal
rules are followed
• These rules(codes) are framed and standardized by
the following organizations.
• ICBN- International Code for Botanical
Nomenclature
• ICZN- International Code for Zoological
Nomenclature

• 1. Biological names are generally in Latin and

written in italics. They are latinised or derived
from Latin irrespective of their origin.
• 2. First word of a biological name denotes the
genus whereas second one is for species.
• 3. Names are printed in italics or when hand
written are separately underlined to indicate their
latin origin.
• 4. Generic name starts with a capital letter and
the specific name with a small letter
Eg:- Mangifera indica, Homo sapiens.
5. The name of the author is written in
abbreviated form after the species name and is
printed in roman.(eg: Mangifera indica Linn.) it
indicates that this species was first described by
Linnaeus.
• It is the process by which anything is grouped into
convenient categories based on some easily
observable characters.
Biological classification
The scientific method of an arrangement of
organisms into groups is called biological
classification.

• It is a branch of biology which deals with

identification, nomenclature and classification of
organisms.
Taxonomy is based on…
• Characterisation
• Identification
• Classification and
• Nomenclature
The modern taxonomic studies are based on
• External and internal structure
• Structure of cell
• Developmental processes
• Ecological information

Taxonomic categories
• Plants and animals are placed in a series or
succession of different ranks or categories
according to their natural relationship.
Taxonomic hierarchy (hierarchy of categories)
• It is a system of classification in which a group of
things are ranked one above the other. In this
system seven taxonomic categories are placed one
above the other.
The categories are..
• Kingdom, phylum or division, class, order, family,
genus and species.
Taxon :- each category in the taxonomic hierarchy is
called a taxon. It represents the actual biological
objects placed in a category.
 Seven taxonomic categories.
Species
It is a group of individuals resembling one another
in all major vegetative and reproductive
characters(A species is a group of individuals which
are genetically distinct, reproductively isolated and
similar in morphological characteristics).
• It is the lowest taxon in biological classification.
• Eg: - Mangifera indica (Mango)
Solanum tuberosum (Potato)
Panthera leo (Lion)
• The names indica, tuberosum and leo represents
specific names.
• The names Mangifera, solanum and panthera
represents generic names.
• The scientific name of human being- Homo sapiens
 Genus
• A genus is a group of related species.
• All the species in a genus have many common
characteristics. For example, the genus panthera
includes species such as lion (Panthera leo),
leopard (Panthera pardus), and tiger (Panthera
tigris) with many common features.
• The genus Panthera differs from another genus
Felis which includes cats.

Family
• A family is an assemblage of related genera.
Examples:
• The lion (Panthera leo) and the house cat (Felis
domestica) belonging to two different genera are
included under the family Felidae.

Order or cohort
• An order is a category of related families.
• Example families like Felidae (lion, tiger, leopard,
cat etc.) and Canidae (dogs and foxes) are placed
under the order carnivora.
• Plant families like Convolvulaceae and Solanaceae
are included in the order polymoniales.

Class
• Several related orders having certain common
characters form a higher category called the class.
• Example the order carnivora and the order
primata are included in the clas Mammalia

Phylum or Division
• Classes having same features in common
constitute a phylum.
• For example phylum cordata include a number of
classes such as pisces, amphibia, reptilia, aves and
mammals.
• The classes such as dicotyledonae,
monocotyledonae, are included in the division of
Angiospermae.

Kingdom
• The highest category in the biological classification
is the kingdom. It includes one or more related
divisions or phyla.
• Plants are kept in a kingdom plantae and animals
are put in the kingdom animalia.
 Taxonomical Aids
• The aids which helps in the identification,
classification and nomenclature of plants and
animals are known as taxonomical aids.
• The important taxonomic aids are herbaria,
botanical garden, museums, zoological parks and
key. They are repositories of information useful for
taxonomical studies.
• Preserved specimens: - Herbaria and Museums
• Live specimens: - Botanical garden and Zoological
parks.

Herbarium
• A herbarium is defined as store house of collected
plant specimens which have been dried, pressed,
preserved on herbarium sheets, and arranged in
the sequence of a universally accepted system of
classification.
• The herbarium sheets also carry a label providing
information about date and place of collection.
 English, local and botanical names, family,
collectors name etc.

Herbarium label

• Information about the collected specimens is

published in the form of a book called flora.
• It gives a list of total plant species in a particular
region together with a brief description of the
same.
• The largest herbarium of the world is Herbarium
of royal botanical garden at kew in england.
• The largest herbarium in india is central national
herbarium.
 Botanical garden
• These specialised gardens have collections of living
plants for reference.
• Plant species in these gardens are grown for
identification purposes.
• Each plant is labeled indicating its botanical or
scientific name and its family.
Famous botanical gardens
• Royal botanical garden at Kew in England. It is the
largest botanical garden of the world.
• Indian botanical garden at Howrah ( India)
• National botanical research institute, Lucknow (
India).

Museum
• Museums have collections of preserved plant and
animal specimens for study reference.
• Museums are generally set up in educational
institutes such as schools and colleges.
• Specimens are preserved in the containers or jars
in preservative solutions.
• Plant and animal specimens may also be preserved
as dry specimens.
• Insects are preserved in insect boxes after
collecting, killing and pinning.
• Larger animals like birds and mammals are usually
stuffed and preserved.
• Museums often have collections of skeletons of
animals too.

Zoological parks
• These are places, where live animals are
maintained, and allowed to breed.
• In these parks animals are provided with
conditions similar to the natural habitat.
• People, especially the children, visiting a zoological
park (commonly called zoo) enjoy the visit by
seeing a variety of animals.
 Taxonomic keys
• A key is a tool by which each species in a group of
organisms may be identified.
• It is prepared by a taxonomist to help other
biologists to identify the species.
• Taxonomic keys are based on contrasting
characters.
• The characters are in a pair called couplet.
• Separate taxonomic keys are required for each
taxonomic category like family, genus and species
for their identification.

• Besides the above mentioned taxonomic aids ,

flora, manuals, monographs and catalogues also
serve as taxonomic aids for correct identification.

Flora
• These contain the actual account of habitat and
distribution of plant species of a given area.
• It provides the index to plants occuring in a
particular area.
 Manuals
• These provide an information for identification of
names of species occuring in an area.

Monograph
• These provide the information of any one taxon.

Catalogue
• These provide the list of publications. The
publications publish the books, periodicals and
dictionaries which provide new information for
taxonomic studies.