Unit 7.

The variety of life

What do you want to learn?
 What are we
going to study?
• 1-Biodiversity
• 2-Classification of living
things
• 3- Species
• 4- The five kingdoms
• 5- Monera kingdom
• 6- Protoctist kingdom
• 7- Fungi kingdom
 1- Biodiversity
The great variety of life that exists on Earth, or that existed in the past.
Are humans a danger for biodiversity?

Short movie MAN

2- Classification of living
things
2.1.Classificatio
n criteria
• Objective
• Discriminatory
 2.2.How are living
things classified?
Taxonomy is the
science that classifies
living things. Each of
these groups is called a
taxa or taxonomic
category and they share
common characteristics.
 3- Species
Group of individuals that
share common
characteristics and can
reproduce, creating fertile
offspring.
 Do these animals
belong to the same
species?
3.1.How are species named?

• Scientists used binomial nomenclature.

• The scientific name is formed by two words:
First: corresponds to the genus (always in capital
letter)
Second: corresponds to the species (written in
lower case)

Carl Linnaeus(1753)
Sus scrofa
Abies pinsapo Quercus ilex
 3.2. Dichotomus key

Groups of pairs of brief descriptions, objective and discriminatory that let

us species.
Video DICHOTOMOUS KEY
 Evolution by natural
selection
• Life appeared about 3,5 billion years
ago.
• The first organisms were prokaryotic.
• Those organisms have changed over
time and transformed into the enormous
variety of species.
• The mechanism of evolution is called
natural selection.
Video SIMPSON'S EVOLUTION
Video EVOLUTION
Do your own dichotomous key to identify the following living things
4- The five Kingdoms
They are classified according to:

Type of cell

Cell organization

Presence of tissues

Type of nutrition
 The Monera kingdom
Cell type:
Prokaryotic
Cellular organization:
Unicellular
Type of nutrition:
Autotrophic or heterotrophic
Presence of tissues:
No tissue present
Living things:
Bacteria and cyanobacteria
 Unicellular:
protozoa and some
algae

The protoctist kingdom Multicellular: algae

Autotrophic: algae
Heterotrophic: protozoa

Cell type:
Eukaryotic
Cellular organization:
Unicellular or multicellular
Type of nutrition:
Autotrophic or
heterotrophic
Presence of tissues:
No tissues present
Living things:
Protozoa and algae
The Fungi kingdom Unicellular: yeasts
Multicellular: moulds and mushrooms

Cell type:
Eukaryotic
Cellular organization:
Unicellular or multicellular
Type of nutrition:
heterotrophic
Presence of tissue:
No tissues present
Living things:
Yeasts, moulds and
mushrooms
The Plant kingdom
Cell type:
Eukaryotic
Cellular organization:
Multicellular
Type of nutrition:
Autotrophic
Presence of tissues:
tissues present
Living things:
Mosses, ferns and spermatophytes
The animal kingdom
Cell type:
Eukaryotic
Cellular organization:
Multicellular
Type of nutrition:
Heterotrophic
Presence of tissue:
tissue present
Living things:
Vertebrates and invertebrates
Protoctist Fungi
Find the mistakes in this table
Protoctist Fungi
 Virus
• They are microscopic acellular
infectious agents.
• They are forced parasites: they
reproduce using the host cell.
• Parts: Nucleic acid and capsid.
Some can have also an envelope.
Video VIRUSES
 Viruses

• What causes a cold?

• Why can´t we use antibiotics to treat a cold?
• Are viruses prokaryotes or eukaryotes?
• Are they living things?
• What they have to do to reproduce?
• What is the capsid?
• What´s the size of the viruses compared to bacteria?
• Viruses are very specific. What does it mean?
Video VIRUSES
Ebola virus: ebola virus disease
Video EBOLA VIRUS
 Coronavirus: COVID-19

Video CORONAVIRUS
HIV- It produces AIDS
Video HIV
Can we use antibiotics to fight against viruses?
 5- Monera
kingdom: Bacteria

• Unicellular and prokaryote.

• Microscopic
• They live in all kinds of
habitats.
• They detect changes in the
environment and respond to
them.
• Some live independently,
others form colonies.
 Classificatio
n according
to their shape
 Nutrition

They can be autotrophic like

cyanobacteria or heterotrophic
like Escherichia coli
Reproduction
They reproduce by binary fission.
Agar
Bacteria´s habitat

• They can adapt to extreme

environments.
• Any place where life exists have
bacteria.
Importance of
bacteria • They intervene in the process of
recycling matter.
• Creation of medicines
• Obtention of food products
• Biological investigation
• They constitute the intestinal
flora.

Video BACTERIA
 Bacteria
that cause
diseases
Black death- about 75 millons of deaths
Yersinia pestis
Salmonellosis

Salmonella typhi
Streptococcus pneumoniae

Pneumonia
 Vibrio vulnificus :
“Flesh-eating bacteria”
6- PROTOCTIST
KINGDOM

• Protozoa
• Algae
 Protozoa
• Unicellular organisms with
eukaryotic cell similar to an
animal one.
• Heterotrophic.
• They reproduce by binary
fission.
• They live in aquatic
environments or inside
other living things.
• They classify according to
their way of moving.
Amoeba Vorticella Trypanosoma
 Importance of protozoa
• Free living species form part
of the zooplankton.
• Some species are symbionts
that live in the digestive
system of animals.
• Other species are parasites
causing: malaria, sleeping
sickness etc.
Malaria

Plasmodium falciparum Anopheles

Transmission
• The bite of the female Anopheles mosquito, carrier of the parasite
Symptons
• Headache, fever, vomits, chills
Naegleria fowleri

“Braineating amoebas”
 Algae
• Eukaryotic organisms.
• Unicellular or simple multicellular.
• Autotrophic. They have chloroplasts.
• They are usually aquatic. Some float on water
and others are attached to the substrate.
• Most unicellular algae float. Large algae are
sessile.
 Why aren´t they considered plants?

Because they don´t have true tissues

 Classification of algae
Green algae Brown algae Red algae

• Colour green due to the • Colour brown due to • Mostly red due to a
clorophyll yellow pigment which reddish pigment that
• Unicellular and combined with hides the clorophyll
multicellular clorophyll looks brown • Multicellular
• Mostly in the surface of • Multicellular • Most marine. They
fresh water • Marine, attached to the can live at great
ocean floor depths
 Importance of algae
• Primary producers of organic matter in marine
environments.
• They form phytoplankton together with
cianobacteria.
• Food industry.
• Pharmaceutical industry.
• Cosmetics.
What is phytoplankton?

Unicellular algae+ cyanobacteria

that live floating in water

Producers of
oxygen in aquatic
ecosystems
7- FUNGI KINGDOM
 Characteristics
Cellular organization:
Unicellular or multicellular . No true tissues.
Type of cells: Eukaryotic cells with cell wall.
Nutrition:
Heterotrophic. Decomposers, parasites or symbiotic.
Reproduction:
Unicellular asexually by budding and multicellular
asexually with spores.
 Yeasts

• Unicellular fungi.
• Some are parasites and others are
useful for human beings
(fermentation processes in the food
industry).
• Reproduction by budding.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Fermentation
Fermentation
experiment

Video FERMENTATION EXPERIMENT

 Yeast infections

Candida albicans

Candidiasis
 Athlete´s foot
Trichophyton rubrum, Epidermophyton floccosum y Trichophyton interdigitale.
 Multicellular fungi
• The cells group together in long filaments called hyphae
• Hundreds of hyphae intertwine and form the mycelium
 Moulds

• Some are parasites and

others are useful for
humans.
• Reproduction by spores.
Are all the moulds bad for us?
Alexander Fleming (1881-1955)

Penicillin (1928)
 Mushrooms
• Their mycelium forms a
reproductive structure called
mushroom.
• Some are poisonous and some are
edible.
• Reproduction by spores.
Chanterellus cybarius Amanita muscaria

Amanita virosa Stropharia cubensis

Termitomyces titanicus
 Importance of
fungi
• Soil renovation: they recycle
matter.
• Food industry
• Medicine: production of
antibiotics
• Symbiotic associations:
lichens and mycorrhizae
Video PROTIST AND FUNGI
 Lichen
Symbiotic association
between a fungus and
algae or
cyanobacteria
Mycorrhizae
Symbiotic association
between the roots of a
plant and the hyphae of a
fungus.
Mould formation

MOLD BREAD EXPERIMENT

Biggest living thing on
Earth
Honey fungus
How can we prevent some infectious diseases?

Video HOW DO VACCINES WORK?

Edward Jenner
 Why is halitosis
produced?

Video HALITOSIS