Ch-1

Characteristics & Classification

of Living Organisms
MRS. H. GREN

•Movement
•Respiration
•Sensitivity
•Homeostasis
•Growth and development
•Reproduction
•Excretion
•Nutrition
 Characteristics of Living Organisms
•Movement: an action by an organism or part of an organism causing a change
of position or place
•Respiration: the chemical reactions that break down nutrient molecules in
living cells to release energy for metabolism
•Sensitivity: the ability to detect or sense stimuli in the internal or external
environment and to make appropriate responses
•Growth: a permanent increase in size and dry mass by an increase in cell
number or cell size or both
•Reproduction: the processes that make more of the same kind of organism
•Excretion: the removal from organisms of toxic materials, the waste products
of metabolism (chemical reactions in cells including respiration) and substances
in excess of requirements
•Nutrition: the taking in of materials for energy, growth and development;
plants require light, carbon dioxide, water and ions; animals need organic
compounds, ions and usually need water
 How Organisms are Classified

•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)
 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
Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach
The order of classification can be remembered by using a mnemonic like:
KING PHILIP CAME OVER FOR GRAN’S SPAGHETTI
 Dichotomous Keys
•Keys are used to identify organisms based on a series of questions about their
features
•Dichotomous means ‘branching into two’ and it leads the user through to the
name of the organism by giving two descriptions at a time and asking them to
choose
•Each choice leads the user onto another two descriptions
•In order to successfully navigate a key:
• You need to pick a single organism to start with, or you may be presented
with an unfamiliar one as part of an exam questions
• Follow the statements from the beginning. Each statement or question
you should be able to answer using the information provided in the
question or an image given as part of the question.
• Eventually there will be no more statements or questions left and you will
have the name of the organism
• You then pick another organism and start at the beginning of the key
again, repeating until all organisms are named
 Using DNA to Classify Organisms

•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
•The sequences above show that Brachinus armiger and Brachinus hirsutus are more
closely related than any other species in the list as their DNA sequences are identical
except for the last but one base (B.armiger has a T in that position whereas B.hirsutus
has an A)
•As DNA base sequences are used to code for amino acid sequences in proteins, the
similarities in amino acid sequences can also be used to determine how closely related
organisms are
 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
•Main features of all animals:
• they are multicellular
• their cells contain a nucleus but
no cell walls or chloroplasts
• they feed on organic substances
made by other living things
 The Animal Kingdom
•Several main features are used to place organisms into groups (phylum) within the animal
kingdom
Vertebrates/Chordate (phylum)
•All vertebrates have a backbone
• There are 5 classes of vertebrates
Invertebrates (not a phylum)
•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:
Centipede Insect
•Main features of all plants:
• they are multicellular
• their cells contain a nucleus,
chloroplasts and cellulose cell walls
• they all feed by photosynthesis
 The Plant Kingdom
•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
•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
How do you distinguish between monocotyledons and dicotyledons?
1) Flowers
•Flowers from monocotyledons contain petals in multiples of 3
•Flowers from dicotyledons contain petals in multiples of 4 or 5
2) Leaves
•Leaves from monocotyledons have parallel leaf veins
•Leaves from dicotyledons have reticulated leaf veins (meaning that they are all
interconnected and form a web-like network throughout the leaf)
•Main features of all fungi (e.g. moulds, mushrooms,
yeast)
• usually multicellular
• cells have nuclei and cell walls not made from
cellulose but from chitin
• do not photosynthesize but feed by
saprophytic (on dead or decaying material) or
parasitic (on live material) nutrition
•Main features of all Protoctists (e.g. Amoeba, Paramecium, Plasmodium)
• most are unicellular but some are multicellular
• all have a nucleus, some may have cell walls and chloroplasts
• meaning some protoctists photosynthesise and some feed on organic
substances made by other living things
Main features of all Prokaryotes (bacteria, blue-green algae)
often unicellular
cells have cell walls (not made of cellulose but of peptidoglycan) and cytoplasm but no
nucleus (main difference with eukaryotes) or mitochondria
 Viruses
•Viruses are not part of any classification system as they are not considered living
things
•They do not carry out the seven life processes for themselves, instead they take
over a host cell’s metabolic pathways in order to make multiple copies of
themselves
•Virus structure is simply genetic material (RNA or DNA) inside a protein coat