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CHARACTERISTICS & CLASSIFICATION OF LIVING

ORGANISIMS
1.1 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.

1.1.2 Concept & Uses of Classification Systems

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
offspringh
 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 (pinna’s)nt

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 specialized 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

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 The sequence of classification
is: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

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
and follow the statements from the beginning until you find the name
 You then pick another organism and start at the beginning of the key again, repeating
until all organisms are named

Using types of pasta to practice dichotomous key

Example key using macaroni, penne, farfalle, spaghetti and fettuccini.
1a: Pasta is hollow………………………………….Go to #2
1b: Pasta is solid……………………………………..Go to #3
2a: Pasta is smooth and curved……………..Macaroni
2b: Pasta is long and straight………………….Penne
3a: Pasta is shaped like a bow-tie…………..Farfalle
3b: Pasta is long and straight………………….Go to #4
4a: Pasta is round and thin……………………..Spaghetti
4b: Pasta is flat………………………………………..Fettuccini

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Reflecting Evolutionary Relationships

 Classification systems aim to reflect evolutionary relationships between species
 Traditional biological classification systems grouped organisms based on
the features that they shared

o If organisms shared more similar features then they were said to be more closely
related
 In the past, scientists have encountered many difficulties when trying to determine
the evolutionary relationships of species based on this method
 Using the physical features of species (such as color/shape/size) has many
limitations and can often lead to the wrong classification of species

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

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 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

DNA sequences can show how closely related different species are

 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 ([Link] has a T in that position whereas [Link]
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.

Using Features of organisms

The Five Kingdoms

 The first division of living things in the classification system is to put them into one
of five kingdoms. They are:
o Animals
o Plants
o Fungi
o Protoctists
o Prokaryotes

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Main features of all animals:
o they are multicellular
o their cells contain a nucleus but no cell walls or chloroplasts
o
o they feed on organic substances made by other living things

Main features of all plants:

o they are multicellular
o their cells contain a nucleus, chloroplasts and cellulose cell walls
o they all feed by photosynthesis

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The Animal Kingdom

 Several main features are used to place organisms into groups within the animal
kingdom

Vertebrates

 All vertebrates have a backbone

o There are 5 classes of vertebrates

Vertebrate Table

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Invertebrate Table

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Fungi

 Main features of all fungi (e.g. moulds, mushrooms, yeast)

o usually multicellular
o cells have nuclei and cell walls not made from cellulose
o do not photosynthesize but feed by saprophytic (on dead or decaying
material) or parasitic (on live material) nutrition

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A typical fungal cell

 Main features of all Protoctists (e.g. Amoeba, Paramecium, Plasmodium)

o most are unicellular but some are multicellular
o all have a nucleus, some may have cell walls and chloroplasts
o meaning some protoctists photosynthesise and some feed on organic
substances made by other living things

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Two examples of protoctists cells nm

 Main features of all Prokaryotes (bacteria, blue-green algae)

o often unicellular
o ncells have cell walls (not made of cellulose) and cytoplasm but no nucleus or
mitochondria


A typical bacterial cell

The Plant Kingdom: Extended

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 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

Fern plant without reproduction spores

REPRODUCTIVE SPORES

Fern plant with reproductive spores

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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

Wheat and maize are examples of monocotyledons

Sunflowers and beans are dicotyledonous plants.

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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)

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

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