Means of Classification

Phylogeny
1. This is the classification of organisms depending on their evolutionary history.
  1. A phylogenetic tree is used to represent organisms of different species and how closely they are related.
    1. The closer they are, the more related they are, in terms of the ancestor species they have evolved from.
2. For example, humans are closely related to the orangutan and chimpanzee, as they are next to each other the phylogenetic tree.
  1. This means that these three organisms must have evolved from the same species.
taxonomy
1. This is the science of naming organisms.
  1. There are 8 levels of classifying organisms, each one known as a taxa.
    1. The whole thing is known as hierarchy which means groups within groups with no overlaps.
      1. The 8 groups are: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.
2. Organisms are named using their genus (begins with capital letter), followed by their species (all small letters.
  1. For example, Homo sapiens (humans).
    1. 'Homo' is the genus and 'sapiens' is the species, of humans.
Courtship behaviour
1. This is the behaviours of organisms to attract a mate of the same species.
  1. As different species have different courtship behaviour, this can be used to classify organisms.
  2. It prevents the mating of wrong organisms, of different species.
  3. It also allows breeding to occur between organisms of the same maturity, e.g. not too young or too old.
2. There are two types: simple and complex.
  1. Peacocks use their feathers as an attractive visual display. This is simple.
  2. The blue-footed booby does a complex dance routine.
  3. The male red deer simply makes a loud noise.
Using DNA
1. During this, the DNA of certain organisms can be extracted.
  1. Then the genome (the full set of DNA bases) can be compared.
    1. The less differences there are between the two strands, the more closely related the two organisms are.
2. You can also compare the amino acid sequence of two organisms protein.
  1. The more similar they are, the closer they are related.
Immunological comparisons
1. This is simply comparing the antibodies of two different organisms.
  1. This is done by using an antigen and seeing whether they bind to form an antigen-antibody complex.
    1. If they both do, the organisms are related.
Biodiversity
1. This is the number of different organisms on Earth, as well as the genetic variation between them.
2. Farmers reduce the biodiversity of crops making it difficult to classify, by using selective breeding instead of natural selection.
  Annotations:
  - Natural selection is when organisms naturally select features which help it to survive pass it on to the next generation.
  - Selective breeding is when humans deliberately choose a feature that will benefit them, and make them breed. THIS MAY NOT HELP WITH SURVIVAL!
  1. They use pesticides which kill insects.
  2. They use fertilisers which flow into rivers through desertification, killing fish.
  3. They use monoculture, which supports fewer organisms.
    Annotations:
    - Monoculture is the growing of only one type of crop only.
  4. They cut bushes and hedgerows, destroying habitat.

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Means of Classification

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	Created by Jumael Zafar about 7 years ago