Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Classification
- Classification = the act of arranging
organisms into groups based on their
similarities and differences.
- This makes it easier
for scientists to identify
them.
- Taxonomy = the study
of classification.
- Similar organisms
are placed into 1 of 3
domains i.e. animals,
plants or fungus
- As you move down the
hierarchy, there are more
groups at each level but fewer
organisms in each group.
- The hierarchy ends with
species which only contains
one type of organism e.g.
human, dog or E. coli
- Animals can be placed into
1 of 5 kingdoms i.e.
prokaryotae, protoctista,
fungi, plantae, animalia.
- Prokaryotae are prokaryotic, unicellular,
with no nucleus and less than 5um.
- Protoctista are eukaryotic usually
living in water, single celled or simple
multicellular organisms.
- Fungi are eukaryotic with a chitin cell
wall and saprotrophic (absorb substances
from dead or decaying organisms)
- Plantae are eukaryotic, multicellular with
walls made of cellulose, can perform
photosynthesis, contain chlorophyll and
are autotrophic (produce their own food)
- Animalia are eukaryotic
multicellular cells with no cell
wall and are heterotropic
(consume plants and animals)
- Binomial Naming System
- This is used for classification as it
involves giving all organisms one
internationally accepted Latin name.
- The first part is the genus which
is written with a capital letter. The
second part is the species name
and it is written with a lower case.
Both are written with italics or
underlined if handwritten.
- This helps to avoid the confusion of using
common names. For example, there are over
100 different plant species called raspberries.
- Phylogeny
- This is the study of the
evolutionary history of
groups of organisms.
- Since all organisms have evolved from
one common ancestor, phylogeny
shows which organisms is related to
which ancestor and how closely.
- Closely related species
diverged away from each
other most recently.
- Evolution of Classification Systems
- Early Classification
- Classification systems only
used observable features such
as laying eggs and flying.
- However scientists don't always agree on the
relative importance of these features as they may
not show how closely related the organisms are.
- Modern Classification
- Molecular Evidence
- Similarities in proteins in DNA.
Closely related organisms will
have more similar molecules.
- The way DNA is stored, the sequence
of bases and the sequence of amino
acids in proteins can all be compared.
- Embryological Evidence
- The similarities in the early
stages of the embryo's
development.
- Anatomical Evidence
- The similarities in structure and
function of different body parts.
- Behavioural Evidence
- The similarities in behaviour
and social organisation of an
organism.
- The 3 Domain System
- This is relatively new (1990) and
was suggested because
of new evidence.
- Molecular Evidence showed the enzyme
RNA polymerase is different in Bacteria
and Archaea because Archaea have
similar histones to Eukarya
- Cell Membrane Evidence showed that
the bonds of lipids in the cell membranes
of Bacteria and Archaea are different
- In the older system, the largest
groups were the kingdoms.
- Most scientists now agree that Bacteria and
Archaea evolved separately and that Archaea are
more closely related to Eukarya than Bacteria.
- Dichotomous Keys
- These provide a way to identify
organisms based on observable
features such as colour of leaves
etc.