UNIT – 1 - CLASSIFICATION

1.1 – Biology of living organism

1.2 – Variety of Life
1.3 – Fungi
1.4 – Plants
1.5 - Invertebrates
1.6 – Vertebrates
1.7 – Protoctists and Prokaryotes
1.8 - Viruses
 The dawn of life
How do you think life might have started on earth?
• Earth was formed 5 millions years ago from an
enormous cloud of gases.
• Harsh condition.
• Unstable environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi3SaCX5LkU

• First organism was very simple.

• It appeared 2.8 billion years ago.
• Primordial soup: fed on molecules.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pxCGlZoi60
• Living things show variation- Difference between offspring and parents and
between offsprings themselves.

This plays and important role in adaptation and evolution.

 1.1 Characteristics of Living Organisms:
Basics
Movement: an action by an organism causing a change of position or place
Respiration: the chemical reactions that break down nutrient molecules in
living cells to release energy
Sensitivity: the ability to detect and respond to changes in the environment
Growth: a permanent increase in size
Reproduction: the processes that make more of the same kind of organism
Excretion: the removal from organisms of toxic materials and substances in
excess of requirements
Nutrition: the taking in of materials for energy, growth and develop
 1.2 Classification
How Organisms are Classified: Basics

• 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)
• Each species has different characteristics and some of these characteristics can be
inherited by the generations to come.
• These characteristics helped the scientist to put all the living organisms into various
categories.

• The science of placing organisms into categories on the basis of their observable
characteristics is called as classification.
 NEED TO CLASSIFY
• Helps in understanding the diversity.
• Helps in easy identification of living organisms.
• Helps to learns different groups based on their similarities and differences.
• Taxonomy:
• The branch of biology that deals with the study of identification and
classification of organisms is known as taxonomy and the person who
studies it is known as a TAXONOMIST
 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
KING PHILIP CAME OVER FOR
GRAN’S SPAGHETTI
 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
 Dichotomous keys
•  A dichotomous key is a tool that allows the user to determine the identity of
items in the natural world, such as trees, wildflowers, mammals, reptiles,
rocks, and fish. Keys consist of a series of choices that lead the user to the
correct name of a given item. 
For example, use the key to answer the question

1.Wings present ……………………………………… Go to 2 

Wings absent ……………………………………….. Go to 3 
2.One pair of wings visible ……………………………….  A
Two pairs of wings visible ……………………………..  B 
3.Three pairs of legs …………………………………………. C
Two pairs of legs …………………………………………… D

Since this insect has wings, and has two pairs visible, the
answer is B! 
 1.3 Features of Organisms
Common Cell Structures
The cells of all living organisms contain the following:
Cytoplasm
Cell membrane
DNA as genetic material (either found in the nucleus or free in the cytoplasm)
Extended Only
Cell Composition & Structure
When viewed under an electron microscope (at a much higher magnification),
all cells also contain the following:
Ribosomes for protein synthesis
Enzymes for respiration (in many, but not all types of cells, found in
mitochondria
 The Five Kingdoms
• The first division of living things in the classification system is to put them
into one of five kingdoms. They are:
• Animals
• Plants
• Fungi
• Protoctists
• Prokaryotes (Monera)
 Protoctists
• The protoctists are a very diverse kingdom of organisms that don't really belong in any of
the other eukaryotic kingdoms (animals, plants and fungi)
• They are mainly microscopic and single-celled but some aggregate (group together)
into larger forms, such as colonies or chains of cells that form filaments
• Their cells contain a nucleus with a distinct membrane
• Some have features making them more like animal cells e.g. Plasmodium (the protoctist
that causes malaria)
• Some have features, such as cell walls and chloroplasts, making them more like plant cells
e.g. green algae, such as Chlorella
• This means some protoctists photosynthesise and some feed on organic substances made
by other living things
• They do not have nervous coordination
• Examples of protoctists include: amoeba, Paramecium, Plasmodium, Chlorella
 Prokaryotes
• The prokaryotes are different from the other four kingdoms (which are all eukaryotes) as prokaryotic organisms are always
single-celled and do not contain a nucleus
• Instead, the nuclear material of prokaryotic cells is found in the cytoplasm
• Bacteria are prokaryotic organisms

• Bacteria
• Bacteria, which have a wide variety of shapes and sizes, all share the following biological characteristics:
• They are microscopic single-celled organisms
• They have a cell wall (not made of cellulose), cell membrane, cytoplasm and plasmids
• They lack a nucleus but contain a circular chromosome of DNA
• They lack mitochondria and other membrane-bound organelles found in eukaryotic cells
• Examples of bacteria include:
• Lactobacillus (a rod-shaped bacterium used in the production of yoghurt from milk)
• Pneumococcus (a spherical bacterium that acts as the pathogen causing pneumonia)
• Bacteria feed in different ways:
• Some bacteria can carry out photosynthesis despite having no chloroplasts. This is because they still
possess chlorophyl and enzymes necessary to synthesize sugars from carbon dioxide.
• Most feed on other living or dead organisms (if they feed on dead organic matter then they are known
as saprobionts or decomposers)
 FUNGI
•Main features of fungi:
• They are usually multicellular but some are single-celled (e.g. yeast)
• Multicellular fungi are mainly made up of thread-like structures known
as hyphae that contain many nuclei and are organised into a network known as
a mycelium
• Their cells contain a nucleus with a distinct membrane
• Their cells have cell walls made of chitin (chitinous cell walls)
• Their cells do not contain chloroplasts (so they cannot carry out photosynthesis)
• They feed by secreting extracellular digestive enzymes (outside the mycelium) onto
the food (usually decaying organic matter) and then absorbing the digested
molecules. This method of feeding is known as saprotrophic nutrition
• Some fungi are parasitic and feed on living material
• Some fungi store carbohydrates as glycogen
• They do not have nervous coordination
• Examples of fungi include: moulds, mushrooms, yeasts
 1.5 Classifying Plants

• The main features of plants:They are multicellular

• Their cells contain a nucleus with a distinct membrane
• Their cells have cell walls made out of cellulose
• Their cells contain chloroplasts (so they can carry out photosynthesis)
• They feed by photosynthesis
• They store carbohydrates as starch or sucrose
• They do not have nervous coordination
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 : 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
 Animals
• The main features of animals:
• They are multicellular
• Their cells contain a nucleus with a distinct membrane
• Their cells do not have cellulose cell walls
• Their cells do not contain chloroplasts (so they are unable to carry out photosynthesis)
• They feed on organic substances made by other living things
• They often store carbohydrates as glycogen
• They usually have nervous coordination
• They are able to move from place to place
 Invertebrates
• Invertebrates do not possess a backbone
• 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:
 Vertebrates
All vertebrates have a backbone.
There are 5 classes of vertebrates
 Viruses

• Viruses are not usually included in the classification of living organisms as they

are not considered to be alive
• This is due to the fact that viruses do not carry out the 8 life processes for themselves
• In fact, the only life process they seem to display is reproduction but even to carry
out this process they must take over a host cell’s metabolic pathways in order to
make multiple copies of themselves
• Viruses, which have a wide variety of shapes and sizes, all share the following
biological characteristics:
• They are small particles (always smaller than bacteria)
• They are parasitic and can only reproduce inside living cells
• They infect every type of living organism
• They have no cellular structure but have a protein coat and contain one type of nucleic acid,
either DNA or RNA
HOMEWORK FOR UNIT 1.1 – 1.8

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