1: Classification and characteristics of living organisms

1.1 Characteristics of living organisms

Life: Unique and complex organisation of molecules that have chemical reactions that lead
to growth, sensitivity, adaptation and reproduction.

Tissues: a group of cells with similar structures, working together to perform a shared
function.

Organ: a structure made up of a group of tissues, working together to perform specific

functions.

Organ system: a group of organs with related functions, working together to perform body
functions.

The characteristics of living organisms (RINGER)

● Respiration: chemical reactions in living cells that break down nutrient
molecules to release energy for metabolism → e.g. many organisms have gas
exchange to supply cells with oxygen
● Irritability: Sensitivity to the environment → able to detect and respond to
changes in the internal and external environment
○ Changes are called stimuli → responses involve movement
■ Movement: an action by an organism/part of an organism by
causing a change in position or place
● Nutrition (being nourished): taking in materials for energy, growth, and
development.
○ Plants: light, CO2, water, and ions needed for photosynthesis, which
supplies the plant with its nutrients/food (as plants are autotrophs)
○ Animals: Organic compounds and mineral ions (and usually water) →
obtain their foods ‘ready-made’ not produced by themselves, and eat
them for nutrients
■ Nutrients contain raw materials/energy for growth and repair
which occurs by absorbing/assimilating them
● Growth and development: permanent increase in size and dry mass resulting
from an increased number of cells, cell size, or both
○ Increase in size = growth, increase in relative sizes of body parts =
development
● Excretion: removal of toxic materials, waste products of metabolism (chemical
reactions in cells e.g. respiration), and excess substances from organisms
 ● Reproduction: process that makes more of the same organism → makes the
same species as its parents due to the genetic information contained in each
living organism
○ Method 1: organism split into two
○ Method 2: complex process involving fertilisation

Complex organisation
- Living things have complex organisation unlike non-living things
- E.g. snowflake is an organised collection of identical molecules
- Living cells have many different complex substances arranged in
specific structures.
- Also show variation between offspring and parents → adaptation
to environment and evolution

How these characteristics (RINGER) depend on each other

- They are all linked → organisms only grow if they are nourished, nutrition is
from the environment → must produce waste materials that need to be excreted
→ cells and tissues need to be organised (complex structures) to carry out
actions to respond to the environment (irritability). Variation in generations is
evident in the random nature of reproduction.

1.2 Concept and uses of Classification Systems

- Organisms are classified into groups based on the features they share
- These systems aim to reflect the evolutionary relationships over time as a
result of natural selection

Classification factors
1. Morphology
2. Anatomy
Binomial system: a system of naming species
- Every living organism has a unique, two-part scientific name:
● The first name is Genus, the second name is species.
● Names are written in Latin, printed in italics.
● The genus always starts with a capital letter, and the species always starts with a
lower-case letter
○ e.g. Homo sapiens
Modern ways of classification: protein structure, chromosome number, gene
sequence
1. Protein structure → closely related organisms have similar amino acid
sequences in proteins e.g. haemoglobin
2. DNA sequences → establishes the amount of shared ancestry two organisms
have as those with recent shared ancestors have similar DNA sequences
because there has been less time for copying errors by DNA polymerase to
change their DNA sequence. (less evolution time for base sequences of
DNA to change)
3. Originally the organisms were classified using morphology (form and shape
of organism) and anatomy (detailed body structure determined by
dissection)
4. Now, due to microscopes and knowledge of biochemistry + DNA
sequencing, organs can be classified scientifically
5. DNA - the more similar the base sequence, the more closely they are related
(share a recent ancestor)
a. Base sequence in mammals’ DNA is closely relate to other mammal
DNA compared to other chordata (vertebrate) classes
6. Similarities in amino acid sequences can also determine how closely related
organisms are → DNA base sequences are used to code amino acid
sequences in proteins
1.3 Features of Organisms

Taxonomy of organisms → organisms have more and more in commons going down
the groups

→ Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

E.g. Humans
Kingdom - Animal
Phylum - Chordata (chordate)
Class - Mammals,
Order - Primates
Family - Hominids
Genus - Homo
Species - Homo sapiens

Kingdoms: Animals, Plants, Fungi, Proctocists, Prokaryotes (bacteria)

Features
- Single cell and no obvious nucleus = prokaryote
- Single cell and obvious nucleus = protoctists
- Many cells and no cell wall = animals
- Many cells and obvious cell wall with chlorophyll in chloroplasts = plants
- Many cells and obvious cell wall without chlorophyll (feeds by absorption) = fungi

- Classification dichotomous key:

- Presence of definite nucleus in cells: no → prokaryote, yes → move down
- Made up of many different cells: no → protoctist, yes → move down
- Heterotroph: no → plant, yes → move down
- Cell walls and fed by external digestion: no → animal, yes → fungi

ANIMALS: multicellular, heterotrophs → energy from other organisms, eukaryote,

reproduces sexually, contains nucleus but no cell walls or chloroplasts

● Internal- fertilisation inside of the body (humans)

● External- fertilisation outside of the body (frogs)
● Viviparous- give birth to live young (humans)
● Oviparous- lay eggs (birds)
● Homeotherm- control their own body temperature (humans)
● Poikilotherm- body temperature varies according to the environment

Animal Phyla

Vertebrates (animals with backbones - internal skeleton, non-segmented body) = Phylum Chordata
Classes

- Mammals
- Skin covering, no scales on skin, fur/hair and mammary glands, external
ears (pinna), have placenta, young feed on milk from mammary glands,
endothermic (takes in heat)
- E.g. humans, horse, dog
- Reptiles
- Skin covering, scales on skin, dry and fixed scales on skin, lay eggs with
rubbery shells
- E.g. snake, turtle, iguana
- Fish
- Skin covering, moist-mucous covered, loose and wet scales on skin, gills,
fins, lay eggs without shells
- E.g. flounder, grouper, shark
- Amphibians
- No covering on skin (smooth and moist skin), adults have lungs - larvae have
gills, lay eggs without shells
- E.g. frog, toad
- Birds
- Skin covering, no scales on skin, feather, beak, wings , lays eggs with hard
shells, endothermic
- E.g. parrot, eagle

Invertebrates (don’t have backbone)

- Arthropods = hard exoskeleton, jointed limbs/legs, segmented body
- Myriapods → segmented, at least 1 pair of jointed legs, 1 pair of antennae
- E.g. centipede, millipede
- Insects → three body segment (head thorax abdomen), three pairs of legs, two
pairs of wings, antennae
- E.g. butterfly, bee
- Crustaceans → two pairs of antennae
- E.g. crab, lobster
- Arachnids → two body segments (cephalothorax - head-thorax, and
abdomen), four pairs of legs, no wings
- E.g. spiders, tarantulas
- Annelids = segmented body with chaetae (bristles)
- Molluscs = soft body with NO limbs - covered by shell

PLANTS: multicellular, autotrophs → feed by photosynthesis and produces own

nourishment using sunlight, water, CO2, eukaryote, has nucleus, cellulose cell walls and
chloroplasts
 - At least some part of every plant is green due to the presence of the pigment
chlorophyll → absorbs energy form sunlight

Plant phyla
● Ferns
○ Leaves called fronds
○ Reproduce by spores on underside of fronds
○ Do not produce flowers
● Flowering plants
○ Reproduce sexually by flowers and seeds
○ Seeds produced by ovary at base of flower
○ Two kinds
■ Monocotyledon = petals in multiples of 3, parallel leaf veins
■ Dicotyledons = petals in multiples of ⅘, branching out leaf veins

FUNGI: most e.g. mushrooms or moulds are multicellular, few e.g. yeast is unicellular →
each cell = own organism, heterotrophs (energy from other organisms)/saprotrophs (feed
using saprotrophic nutrition) → feed by saprophytic (on dead or decaying material) or
parasitic (on live material) nutrition, chitin cell wall NOT cellulose
- External digestion
- Secretes digestive enzymes onto food outside
- Enzymes break down food
- Absorb nutrients
 - Multicellular fungi sometimes have a body called mycelium → made up of
thread-like structures called hyphae
- Some fungi are pathogens → causes disease in humans e.g. fungi causes athlete’s foot

PROTOCTISTS: most are unicellular, very various, nothing to do with humans but few
can cause disease (pathogens), has nucleus, some have cell wall and chloroplasts → some
photosynthesise and some feed on organic substances from other living things
- E.g. amoeba, algae, plasmodium, paramecium
- Chlorella, Euglena; have chloroplasts → can photosynthesise
- Amoeba: heterotrophic → consume other organisms for energy
- Plasmodium: pathogen → causes malaria

PROKARYOTES: unicellular, cells walls of peptidoglycan (NOT cellulose), no nucleus

or mitochondria, live everywhere, some can photosynthesise but NO chloroplasts → most
feed on other organisms from living things
- Some cause disease → salmonella (food poisoning), a genus of bacteria causes
abdominal cramps, vomiting, and diarrhoea
- Not all are pathogens however - many are helpful, e.g. those found in intestine
**VIRUSES: Not considered living things
- Do not carry out 7 life processes themself
- Takes over a host cell’s metabolic pathways to reproduce (make copies)
- Are genetic material inside a protein coat (RNA or DNA)

Eukaryotes: cells possess a nucleus, DNA (chromosomes) are in the nucleus

Prokaryotes: cells do not have a nucleus, DNA is just floating around the cell