7th
GRADE
Classification Systems
TAXONOMY
Taxonomy
The scientific study of how organisms are classified.
Scientist use taxonomy to identify an unknown
organism – a newly discovered organism.
Organisms in the same group have similarities in
their structure.
How
organisms
are
classified?
Domain
The broadest level of organization.
There are 3 domains:
Eukarya Archaea Bacteria
Members are called Contains a group of Contains a group of
eukaryotes. one-celled one-celled
Kingdoms are organisms with no organisms with no
Plants, animals, nuclei in their cells. nuclei in their cells
fungi and protista but have different
Eukaryotes have structure and
nuclei containing chemical process
DNA from Archaea.
Species
Group of similar organisms that can
mate with each other and produce
offspring that can also mate and
reproduce.
Similar organisms into groups based
on characteristics they have in
common.
Organisms were first classified by a Swedish naturalist
called Carolus Linnaeus in a way that allows the subdivision of
living organisms into smaller and more specialized groups.
He established binomial nomenclature – two part system to
name and classify organism.
He named organisms in Latin - scientific name of an organism.
It 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)
Binomial nomenclature
Genus – is a classification grouping of similar, closely
related organisms. Each genus contains one or more
species.
o Scientific name is made of two words – its genus and species.
o The more classification levels 2 organism share, the more
characteristics they have in common and the more closely
related they are.
How to properly write the scientific name?
1. Genus name then species name.
2. A complete scientific name is written in italics.
3. First letter in genus name is capitalized.
Compare the taxonomic classification of lion and tiger.
Compare the taxonomic classification of gorilla, bonobo,
chimpanzee and human.