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SUBJECT: Biology TOPIC: Characteristics & classification of living organisms
CLASS: 10 BOARD: IGCSE
CHARACTERISTICS AND CLASSIFICATION OF LIVING ORGANISMS
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 or characteristics 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.
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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:
o You need to pick a single organism to start with, or you may be presented with an unfamiliar one.
o Follow the statements from the beginning.
o Each statement or question you should be able to answer using the information provided or an image.
o Eventually there will be no more statements or questions left and you will have the name of the
organism.
o You can then pick another organism and start at the beginning of the key again, repeating until all
organisms are named.
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Few examples of the keys:
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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
CHARACTERISTICS OF 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.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF PLANTS:
▪ They are multicellular.
▪ Their cells contain a nucleus, chloroplasts and cell walls made up of cellulose.
▪ They all feed by photosynthesis.
CHARACTERISTICS OF FUNGI:
▪ They are usually multicellular but some are unicellular.
▪ They have nuclei and cell wall made up of chitin.
▪ They do not have chlorophyll.
▪ They feed saprophytically or parasitically by digesting the organic matter from the dead and decaying
matter of an organism and absorbs it into their cells.
▪ They reproduce by produces and distributing spores (tiny group of cells with protective covering to survive
in the environment till finds food).
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CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTOCTISTS:
▪ They are multicellular or unicellular.
▪ The cell has a nucleus and may or may not have a cell wall.
▪ Some feed by photosynthesis and others feed on organic substances made by other organisms.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PROKARYOTES:
▪ They are usually unicellular.
▪ They have no nucleus.
▪ They have cell walls made up of peptidoglycan (not cellulose).
▪ They have no mitochondria.
▪ They have a circular coiled/loop of DNA free in the cytoplasm.
▪ They often have plasmids.
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GROUPS WITHIN THE ANIMAL KINGDOMS:
VERTEBRATES:
✓ All vertebrates have a backbone.
✓ There are 5 classes of vertebrates.
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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:
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GROUPS WITHIN THE PLANT KINGDOM:
✓ The plant kingdom includes organisms such as ferns and flowering plants.
✓ Ferns:
o Have leaves called fronds
o Do not produce flowers but instead reproduce by spores produced on the underside of fronds.
✓ Flowering plants:
o Reproduce sexually by means of flowers and seeds.
o Seeds are produced inside the ovary found at the base of the flower.
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o Can be divided into two groups – monocotyledons and dicotyledons.
How do you distinguish between monocotyledons and dicotyledons?
✓ Flowers:
o Flowers from monocotyledons contain petals in multiples of 3.
o Flowers from dicotyledons contain petals in multiples of 4 or 5.
✓ Leaves:
o Leaves from monocotyledons have parallel leaf veins.
o Leaves from dicotyledons have reticulated leaf veins (meaning that they are all interconnected and
form a web-like network throughout the leaf).
✓ Roots:
o Roots from monocotyledons have fibrous roots.
o Roots from dicotyledons have tap roots.
✓ Vascular bundles:
o Vascular bundles from monocotyledons are randomly scattered.
o Vascular bundles from dicotyledons are arranged in a circular pattern.
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.
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✓ Virus structure is simply genetic material (RNA or DNA) inside a protein coat.
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