Chapter 2
BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
1. Aristotle was the earliest to attempt a more scientific basis for classification. He
used simple morphological characters to classify plants into trees, shrubs and
herbs. He also divided animals into two groups, those which had red blood and
Those that did not have red blood.
2. In Linnaeus' time a Two Kingdom system of classification with Plantae and
Animalia kingdoms was developed that included all plants and animals
respectively.
This system did not distinguish between the :-
1. eukaryotes and prokaryotes,
2. unicellular and multicellular organisms
3. Photosynthetic (green algae) and non-photosynthetic (fungi) organisms.
3. The two kingdom classification used for a long time was found inadequate.
Besides, gross morphology a need was also felt for including other characteristics
like cell structure, nature of wall, mode of nutrition, habitat, methods of
reproduction, evolutionary relationships, etc.
***** Five Kingdom Classification
4. R.H. Whittaker (1969) proposed a Five Kingdom Classification. The kingdoms
defined by him were named Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia.
The main criteria for classification used by him include cell structure, body
organization, and mode of nutrition, reproduction and phylogenetic
relationships (evolutionary relationships).
5. Issues and considerations that influenced the classification system.
Earlier classification systems included bacteria, blue green algae, fungi, mosses,
ferns, gymnosperms and the angiosperms under ‘Plants’. The character that unified
this whole kingdom was that all the organisms included had a cell wall in their cells.
This placed together groups which widely differed in other characteristics.
It brought together the prokaryotic bacteria and the blue green algae
(cyanobacteria) with other groups which were eukaryotic.
It also grouped Together the unicellular organisms and the multicellular ones, say
for Example, Chlamydomonas and Spirogyra were placed together Under algae.
6. The classification did not differentiate between the heterotrophic group –
fungi, and the autotrophic green plants, though they also showed a characteristic
difference in their walls composition – the fungi had chitin in their walls while the
green plants had a cellulosic cell wall. When such characteristics were
considered, the fungi were placed in a separate kingdom – Kingdom Fungi.
➢ All prokaryotic organisms were grouped together under Kingdom
Monera
➢ The unicellular eukaryotic organisms were placed in Kingdom Protista.
Kingdom Protista has brought together Chlamydomonas, Chlorella (earlier
placed in Algae within Plants and both having cell walls) with Paramoecium and
Amoeba (which were earlier placed in the animals kingdom which lack cell wall).
****Characteristics of the Five Kingdoms
KINGDOM MONERA
➢ Bacteria are the sole members of the Kingdom Monera.
➢ They are the most abundant micro-organisms.
➢ Bacteria occur almost everywhere.
➢ They also live in extreme habitats such as hot springs, deserts, snow and deep
oceans.
➢ Many of them live in or on other organisms as parasites.
➢ Bacteria are grouped under four categories based on their shape:
Spherical - Coccus
Rod shaped - Bacillus
Comma-shaped – Vibrium
Spiral Shaped - Spirillum
➢ Bacterial structure is very simple, they are very complex in behaviour.
➢ Some of the bacteria are autotrophic, they may be photosynthetic autotrophic
or chemosynthetic autotrophic.
➢ The vast majority of bacteria are heterotrophs.
Archaebacteria
➢ These bacteria are special since they live in some of the most harsh habitats
such as extreme
Salty areas (halophiles),
Hot springs (thermoacidophiles)
Marshy areas (methanogens).
➢ Archaebacteria differ from other bacteria in having a different cell wall structure
and this feature is responsible for their survival in extreme conditions.
➢ Methanogens are present in the gut of several ruminant animals such as cows
and buffaloes and they are responsible for the production of methane (biogas)
from the dung of these animals.
Eubacteria (Truebacteria)
➢ They are characterised by the presence of a rigid cell wall, and if motile, a
flagellum.
➢ The cyanobacteria (also referred to as blue-green algae) have chlorophyll a.
➢ The cyanobacteria are unicellular, colonial or filamentous,
➢ fresh water/marine or terrestrial algae.
➢ The colonies are generally surrounded by gelatinous sheath.
➢ They often form blooms in polluted water bodies.
➢ Some of these organisms can fix atmospheric nitrogen in specialised cells
called heterocysts, e.g., Nostoc and Anabaena.***
➢ Chemosynthetic autotrophic bacteria oxidise various inorganic substances
such as nitrates, nitrites and ammonia and use the released energy for their
ATP production.
➢ They play a great role in recycling nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous, iron
and sulphur.
➢ Heterotrophic bacteria are most abundant in nature.
➢ The majority are important decomposers.
➢ Many of them have a significant impact on human affairs.
They are helpful in making
1. curd from milk
2. production of antibiotics,
3. fixing nitrogen in legume roots,
➢ Some are pathogens causing damage to human beings, crops, farm animals
and pets.
➢ Cholera, typhoid, tetanus, citrus canker are well known diseases caused by
different bacteria.
➢ Bacteria reproduce mainly by fission.
➢ Sometimes, under unfavourable conditions, they produce spores.
➢ They also reproduce by a sort of sexual reproduction by adopting a primitive
type of DNA transfer from one bacterium to the other.
➢ The Mycoplasma are organisms that completely lack a cell wall. They are
the smallest living cells known and can survive without oxygen. Many
mycoplasma are pathogenic in animals and plants.***
KINGDOM PROTISTA
➢ All single-celled eukaryotes are placed under Protista.
➢ Protista include Chrysophytes, Dinoflagellates, Euglenoids,
Slime moulds and Protozoans.
➢ Members of Protista are primarily aquatic.
➢ This kingdom forms a link with the others dealing with plants, animals and fungi.
Some have flagella or cilia.
➢ Protists reproduce asexually and sexually by a process involving cell fusion
and zygote formation
Chrysophytes
➢ This group includes diatoms and golden algae (desmids).
➢ They are found in fresh water as well as in marine environments.
➢ They are microscopic and float passively in water currents (plankton).
➢ Most of them are photosynthetic.
➢ In diatoms the cell walls form two thin overlapping shells, which fit together as in
a soap box.
➢ The walls are embedded with silica and thus the walls are indestructible. Thus,
diatoms have left behind large amount of cell wall deposits in their habitat; this
accumulation over billions of years is referred to as ‘diatomaceous earth’.
➢ Being gritty this soil is used in polishing, filtration of oils and syrups.
➢ Diatoms are the chief ‘producers’ in the oceans.
Dinoflagellates
➢ These organisms are mostly marine and photosynthetic.
➢ They appear yellow, green, brown, blue or red depending on the main
pigments present in their cells.
➢ The cell wall has stiff cellulose plates on the outer surface.
➢ Most of them have two flagella; one lies longitudinally and the other transversely
in a furrow between the wall plates.
➢ Very often, red dinoflagellates (Example: Gonyaulax) undergo such rapid
multiplication that they make the sea appear red (red tides). **
➢ Toxins released by such large numbers may even kill other marine animals
such as fishes.
Euglenoids
➢ Majority of them are fresh water organisms found in stagnant water.
➢ Instead of a cell wall, they have a protein rich layer called pellicle which makes
their body flexible.
➢ They have two flagella, a short and a long one.
➢ Though they are photosynthetic in the presence of sunlight, when deprived of
sunlight they behave like heterotrophs by predating on other smaller organisms.
➢ Interestingly, the pigments of euglenoids are identical to those present in higher
plants. Example: Euglena
Slime Moulds
➢ Slime moulds are saprophytic protists.
➢ The body moves along decaying twigs and leaves engulfing organic material.
➢ Under suitable conditions, they form an aggregation called plasmodium which
may grow and spread over several feet.
➢ During unfavorable conditions, the plasmodium differentiates and forms The spores
possess true walls.
➢ They are extremely resistant and survive for many years, even under adverse
conditions.
➢ The spores are dispersed by air current
➢ fruiting bodies bearing spores at their tips.
Protozoans
➢ All protozoans are heterotrophs and live as predators or parasites
➢ They are believed to be primitive relatives of animals.
➢ There are four major groups of protozoans.
Amoeboid protozoans
Flagellated protozoans
Ciliated protozoans
Sporozoans
Amoeboid protozoans:
➢ These organisms live in freshwater, sea water or moist soil.
➢ They move and capture their prey by putting out pseudopodia (false feet) as in
Amoeba.
➢ Marine forms have silica shells on their surface.
➢ Some of them such as Entamoeba are parasites.
Flagellated protozoans:
➢ The members of this group are either free-living or parasitic.
➢ They have flagella.
➢ The parasitic forms cause diseases such as sleeping sickness. Example:
Trypanosoma.
Ciliated protozoans:
➢ These are aquatic, actively moving organisms because of the presence of
thousands of cilia.
➢ They have a cavity (gullet) that opens to the outside of the cell surface.
➢ The coordinated movement of rows of cilia causes the water laden with food to
be steered into the gullet. Example: Paramecium
Sporozoans:
➢ This includes diverse organisms that have an infectious spore-like stage in
their life cycle.
➢ The most notorious is Plasmodium (malaria parasite) which causes malaria.
KINGDOM FUNGI
➢ The fungi constitute a unique kingdom of heterotrophic organisms.
➢ They show a great diversity in morphology and habitat.
➢ We see fungi on moist bread and rotten fruits.
➢ The common mushroom you eat and toadstools are also fungi.
➢ White spots seen on mustard leaves are due to a parasitic fungus.
➢ Some unicellular fungi, e.g., yeast are used to make bread and beer.
➢ Other fungi cause diseases in plants and animals; wheat rust-causing
Puccinia is an important example.
➢ Some are the source of antibiotics, e.g., Penicillium.
➢ Fungi are cosmopolitan and occur in air, water, soil and on animals and plants.
They prefer to grow in warm and humid places.
Have you ever wondered why we keep food in the refrigerator ?
Yes, it is to prevent food from going bad due to bacterial or fungal
infections.
➢ With the exception of yeast which are unicellular, fungi are filamentous.
➢ Their bodies consist of long, slender thread-like structures called hyphae.
➢ The network of hyphae is known as mycelium.
➢ Some hyphae are continuous tubes filled with multinucleated cytoplasm – these
are called coenocytic hyphae.
➢ Others have septae or cross walls in their hyphae.
➢ The cell walls of fungi are composed of chitin and polysaccharides.
➢ They can also live as symbionts – in association with algae as lichens and with
roots of higher plants as mycorrhiza.
➢ Reproduction in fungi can take place by vegetative means –fragmentation,
fission and budding.
➢ Asexual reproduction is by spores called conidia or sporangiospores or
zoospores,
➢ Sexual reproductionis by oospores, ascospores and basidiospores.
➢ The various spores a reproduced in distinct structures called fruiting bodies.
➢ The sexual cycle involves the following three steps:
(i)Fusion of protoplasms between two motile or non-motile gametes called
plasmogamy.
(ii) Fusion of two nuclei called karyogamy.
(iii) Meiosis in zygote resulting in haploid spores.
➢ When a fungus reproduces sexually, two haploid hyphae of compatible mating
types come together and fuse.
➢ In some fungi the fusion of two haploid cells immediately results in diploid cells
(2n).
➢ However, in other fungi (ascomycetes and basidiomycetes),
An intervening dikaryotic stage (n + n, i.e., two nuclei per cell) occurs; such a
condition is called a dikaryon and the phase is called dikaryophase of fungus.
The parental nuclei fuse and the cells become diploid.
➢ The fungi form fruiting bodies in which reduction division occurs, leading to
formation of haploid spores.
➢ The morphology of the mycelium
➢ mode of spore formation
➢ fruiting bodies
form the basis for the division of the kingdom into various classes.
1. Phycomycetes
➢ Found in aquatic habitats and on decaying wood in moist and damp places.
➢ As obligate parasites on plants.
➢ The mycelium is aseptate and coenocytic.
➢ Asexual reproduction takes place by zoospores (motile) or by aplanospores
(non-motile).
➢ These spores are endogenously produced in sporangium.
➢ A zygospore is formed by fusion of two gametes.
➢ Some common examples are :
Mucor Rhizopus (the bread mould mentioned earlier)
Albugo (the parasitic fungi on mustard).
2. Ascomycetes
➢ Commonly known as sac-fungi.
➢ The ascomycetes are mostly multicellular, e.g., Penicillium, or rarely
unicellular, e.g., yeast (Saccharomyces).
➢ They are saprophytic, decomposers, parasitic or coprophilous (growing on
dung).
➢ Mycelium is branched and septate.
➢ The asexual spores are conidia produced exogenously on the special mycelium
called conidiophores. Conidia on germination produce mycelium.
➢ Sexual spores are called ascospores which are produced endogenously in sac
like asci (singular ascus).
➢ These asci are arranged in different types of fruiting bodies called ascocarps.
➢ Some examples are Aspergillus , Claviceps and Neurospora.
➢ Neurospora is used extensively in biochemical and genetic work.
➢ Many members like morels and truffles are edible and are considered
delicacies.
3. Basidiomycetes
➢ Commonly known forms of basidiomycetes are mushrooms, bracket fungi or
puffballs.
➢ They grow in soil, on logs and tree stumps and in living plant bodies as
parasites, e.g., rusts and smuts.
➢ The mycelium is branched and septate.
➢ The asexual spores are generally not found, but vegetative reproduction by
fragmentation is common.
➢ The sex organs are absent, but plasmogamy is brought about by fusion of two
vegetative or somatic cells of different strains or genotypes.
➢ The resultant structure is dikaryotic which ultimately gives rise to basidium.
➢ Karyogamy and meiosis take place in the basidium producing four basidiospores.
➢ The basidiospores are exogenously produced on the basidium (pl.: basidia).
➢ The basidia are arranged in fruiting bodies called basidiocarps.
➢ Some common members are Agaricus (mushroom) Ustilago (smut) and Puccinia
(rust fungus).
4. Deuteromycetes
➢ Commonly known as imperfect fungi because only the asexual or vegetative
phases of these fungi are known.
➢ The deuteromycetes reproduce only by asexual spores known as conidia.
➢ The mycelium is septate and branched.
➢ Some membersare saprophytes or parasites.
➢ Large number of them are decomposers of litter and help in mineral cycling.
➢ Some examples are Alternaria, Colletotrichum and Trichoderma.
KINGDOM PLANTAE
➢ Kingdom Plantae includes all eukaryotic chlorophyll-containing organisms commonly called
plants.
➢ A few members are partially heterotrophic such as the insectivorous plants or parasites.
➢ Bladderwort and Venus fly trap are examples of insectivorous plants and Cuscuta is a
parasite.
➢ The plant cells have an eukaryotic structure with prominent chloroplasts and cell wall
mainly made of cellulose.
➢ Plantae includes algae,bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms.
➢ Life cycle of plants has two distinct phases – the diploid sporophytic
and the haploid gametophytic – that alternate with each other. The lengths
of the haploid and diploid phases, and whether these phases are free–
living or dependent on others, vary among different groups in plants.
This phenomenon is called alternation of generation.
KINGDOM ANIMALIA
➢ This kingdom is characterised by heterotrophic eukaryotic organisms that are multicellular
and their cells lack cell walls.
➢ They directly or indirectly depend on plants for food.
➢ They digest their food in an internal cavity and store food reserves as glycogen or fat.
➢ Their mode of nutrition is holozoic – by ingestion of food.
➢ They follow a definite growth pattern and grow into adults that have a definite shape and
size.
➢ Higher forms show elaborate sensory and neuromotor mechanism.
➢ Most of them are capable of locomotion.
➢ The sexual reproduction is by copulation of male and female followed by embryological
development.
VIRUSES
➢ Virus means venom or poisonous fluid.
➢ Viruses are obligate parasites.
➢ The viruses are non-cellular organisms that are characterised by having an inert crystalline
structure outside the living cell.
➢ All of us who have suffered the ill effects of common cold or ‘flu’ know what effects
viruses can have on us.
➢ Once they infect a cell they take over the machinery of the host cell to replicate
themselves, killing the host.
Dmitri Ivanowsky (1892) recognised certain microbes as causal organism of the mosaic disease
of tobacco
➢ These were found to be smaller than bacteria because they passed through bacteria-proof
filters.
M.W. Beijerinek (1898) demonstrated that the extract of the infected plants of tobacco could
cause infection in healthy plants and named the new pathogen “virus” and called the fluid as
Contagium vivum fluidum (infectious living fluid).
W.M. Stanley (1935) showed that viruses could be crystallized and crystals consist largely of
proteins.
➢ They are inert outside their specific host cell.
➢ In addition to proteins, viruses also contain genetic material, that could be either RNA or
DNA.
➢ No virus contains both RNA and DNA.
➢ A virus is a nucleoprotein and the genetic material is infectious.
➢ In general, viruses that infect plants have single stranded RNA viruses that infect animals
have either single or double stranded RNA or double stranded DNA.
➢ Bacterial viruses or bacteriophages (viruses that infect the bacteria) are usually double
stranded DNA viruses.
➢ The protein coat called capsid made of small subunits called capsomeres, protects the
nucleic acid.
➢ These capsomeres are arranged in helical or polyhedral geometric forms.
➢ Viruses cause diseases like mumps, small pox, herpes and influenza.
AIDS in humans is also caused by a virus.
➢ In plants, the symptoms can be mosaic formation, leaf rolling and curling, yellowing and
vein clearing, dwarfing and stunted growth.
➢ VIROIDS
.
➢ Viroids : In 1971, T.O. Diener discovered a new infectious agent that
was smaller than viruses.
➢ causes potato spindle tuber disease.
➢ It was found to be a free RNA; it lacked the protein coat that is found in viruses, hence the
name viroid.
➢ The RNA of the viroid was of low molecular weight.
PRIONS
➢ Prions : In modern medicine certain infectious neurological diseases
were found to be transmitted by an agent consisting of abnormally folded
protein.
➢ The agent was similar in size to viruses.
➢ These agents were called prions.
➢ The most notable diseases caused by prions are bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) commonly called mad cow disease in cattle and
its analogous variant Cr–Jacob disease (CJD) in humans.
LICHENS
➢ Lichens : Lichens are symbiotic associations i.e. mutually useful associations, between algae
and fungi.
➢ The algal component is known as phycobiont and fungal component as mycobiont, which
are autotrophic and heterotrophic, respectively.
➢ Algae prepare food for fungi and fungi provide shelter and absorb mineral nutrients and
water for its partner.
➢ So close is their association that if one saw a lichen in nature one would
never imagine that they had two different organisms within them.
➢ Lichens are very good pollution indicators – they do not grow in polluted areas.
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