Classification of Microorganisms

Taxonomy
 from the Greek term meaning orderly arrangement
 science of classification of living forms
 objective: to establish the relationships between one group
of organisms and another and to differentiate between them
 provides a common reference for identifying organisms
already classified

systematics
 “Phylogeny”
 the study of the evolutionary history of a group of
organisms
 the hierarchy of taxa reveals evolutionary or phylogenetic
relationships

History and development

Time of Aristotle: living organisms were categorized into either
plants or animals

1857: Carl Von Nageli, a contemporary of Pasteur, proposed that

bacteria and fungi can be placed in the Plant Kingdom

1859: Fungi were placed in their own Kingdom

1866: Ernst Haeckel proposed that Kingdom Protista, to include
bacteria: protozoa, algae and fungi

1937: term ‘prokaryote’ was introduced by Edward Chatton to

distinguish cells having no nucleus

1961: Roger Stanier provided the current definition of

prokaryotes: cells in which the nuclear material (nucleoplasm) is
not surrounded by a nuclear membrane

1968: Robert G.E. Murray proposed the Kingdom Prokaryotae

1969: Robert H. Whittaker founded the five-kingdom system of

classification in which the prokaryotes were placed in the
Kingdom Prokaryotae or Monera until ribosomes provide a
method of comparing cells because ribosomes are present in all
cells

Comparing the sequences of nucleotides in rRNA from different

kinds of cells show that there are 3 distinctively different cell
groups: the eukaryotes and the 2 different types of prokaryotes –
the bacteria and the archaea

1978: Carl R. Woese elevate the level above kingdom into

domain

PHYLOGENIC HIERARCHY
A marine protist whose fossilized colonies form the White Cliffs
of Dover, England

Stromatolites, the fossilized remains of microbial communities

that flourished between 0.5 and 2 billion years ago

Fossilized cyanobacteria found in rocks in Western Australia

that are 3.0 – 3.5 billion years old. These are the oldest known
fossils.

Scientists have isolated living bacteria and yeast 25-40 million

years old

1995: American microbiologist Raul Cano and his colleagues

reported growing Bacillus sphaericus and other as-yet-
unidentified microorganisms that have survived in amber
(fossilized plant resin) for millions of years
 Classification of prokaryotes
Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology (2nd Ed.)
-contains the taxonomic classification scheme for prokaryotes

 Classification is based on similarities in nucleotide

sequences in rRNA.
 Prokaryotes are divided into 2 domains: Bacteria and
Archaea
 strain – a collection of cells derived from a single cell and
are identified by numbers, letters, or names.
Classification of viruses

 not composed of cells

 anabolic machinery within the living host cells to multiply
 not part of the 3 domains since they don’t have any
ribosomes
 ecological niche of a virus is its specific host cell, so
viruses may be more closely related to their hosts than to
other viruses

1991: International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses defined

a viral species as population of viruses with similar
characteristics (including morphology, genes, enzymes) that
occupies a particular ecological niche

Viruses are obligatory intracellular parasites, so they must have

evolved after a suitable host cell had evolved

Origin of viruses
(1) They arose from independently replicating strands of
nucleic acids (such as plasmids)

(2) They developed from degenerative cells that, through many

generations, gradually lost the ability to survive
independently, but cells survive when associated with
another cell

Scientific nomenclature
 A system of scientific names which was developed in the
eighteenth century
 Every organism is assigned two names, or binomial

 Genus name plus specific epithet (species)

 genus is always capitalized and a noun
Classification of eukaryotes  Species is always lowercase and an adjective
 Kingdom Protista: unicellular eukaryotes  Because this system gives two names to each organism, the
 Kingdom Fungi: unicellular yeasts and multicellular molds, system is called binomial nomenclature
and microscopic species such as mushrooms
 Kingdom Plantae: includes some algae and all mosses,
ferns, conifers, and flowering plants
 Kingdom Animalia: includes the invertebrates and
vertebrates
Rules for assigning names are published in the:
 International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
- protozoa and parasitic worms

 International Code of Botanical Nomenclature

- fungi and algae

 Bacteriological Code (International Committee on

Systematic Bacteriology)
- newly classified bacteria and for assigning
bacteria to taxa
 International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology (Bergey’s
Manual)
- descriptions of bacteria and evidence for their
classification