Science of life

What is biology?

 Study of living things

 Science of life
 Theory about world of life
 Biology = Greek word bios  life and logos  knowledge
 Biologists = Scientists who study living things
What do biologists do?

 What is life?
 Difference between living and non-living
 Types of living things on world
 How do living things function?
 What is organism made of?
 Function of organism
 Where do they live an why?
 How does they interact with other organisms and their surroundings?
Characteristics of life

1. Cells
 All organisms are made of cells
 Cells carry out activities for organism to stay alive
2. Nutrition
 Energy  to stay alive
 Materials for making matter (protoplasm)
 Nutrition  process of converting food to protoplasm
 Organisms gain energy by this process
3. Photosynthesis:
 What is it?
 Who does it?

4. Respiration:
 Oxidation of food to release energy
 Glucose + oxygen  carbon dioxide + water + energy
5. Excretion
 Chemical reactions take place in living cells  metabolism
 Metabolism produces some waste products
 Removal of metabolic waste product is called excretion
E.g. Carbon dioxide, water, mineral
 Plants too excrete waste products E.g. CO2
 Living organisms are open systems  receiving and
disposing energy and materials.
 6. Growth and development
 Growth is increase in mass and volume of organism
 Food is used for repair and growth of organism
 Life starts as a single cell and reaches billions of different
cells
 Development make a organism more complex
 Seed becomes seedling and then a big plant, etc.
 7. Movement
 Movement of organisms is independent
 Movement form one place to another is called locomotion
 Corals and sponges can move only parts of their bodies
 Plants do they move?
8. Reproduction
 Why do living things reproduce?
 Genetic information is passed from parents to offspring
 Species refer to group of similar organisms
 Organisms within a species breed
 They produce healthy offspring that are able to grow, develop and reproduce
 9. Sensitivity
 Animals and plants are sensitive to changes in their environment
 E.g., Cockroaches hiding when the light is turned on
 Moving away from heat, unpleasant smell, etc.
 Touch me not plant closing its leaves
 Change in environment cause a organism to react in a predictable way
 External influence  stimulus
 Reaction to stimulus is called response
 Response of living organism to stimulus is termed sensitivity
10. Adaptability
 Adaptation  chances of improving organisms survival in
its environment
 E.g. migration of birds
Classification of living organisms

 Millions of organisms needs to be classified

 Classification is done according to their similarities and
differences
 Artificial classification:
 Initially organisms were classified based on “plants you
can eat” or “animals that can fly”
 No natural relationship between organisms in a group
 Biological (natural) system of classification
 Based on similarities and differences between organisms
 Five kingdoms:
1. Prokaryote-bacteria
2. Protoctista-single celled organisms
3. Fungi-mushrooms, moulds,etc.
4. Plantae-green plants
5. Animalia-animals, humans
 Within each kingdom  phylum (made of several classes)
 Classmade of orders
 Ordermade of families
 Familyvarying number of genus
 Genusseveral species
Binomial system of naming species

 Carolus Linnaeus used Latin to give two names (binomial

system)
 First name genus  starts with capital letter
 Second name species  small letter
 Both genus and species name should be
italicized/underlined