THE FIVE

TAXONOMIC CLASSIFICATION

KINGDOM
CLASSIFICATIO
N AZIZ T. INSANI ,RPh, MPA
 HISTORY:
Billions of years of evolution have led to a mind-numbing variety of species on earth.
Classification of these organisms was a serious challenge for the biologists.

Many researchers have come forward with different categories to classify living things. Among
them, Ernst Haeckel (1894), Robert Whittaker (1959), and Carl Woese (1977) are a few, whose
contributions are notable.

Modern-day of taxonomy has accepted the five-kingdom classification which was proposed by
R. H. Whittaker. The basis of his classification is the cell structure, mode, and source of
nutrition, and the structure of the body.

The classification of living organisms according to Whittaker is divided into five kingdoms
namely: Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia.

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 R.H. Whittaker proposed the
five-kingdom classification
in 1969. This classification
was based upon certain
characters like mode of
nutrition, thallus
organization, cell structure, Click icon to add picture
phylogenetic relationships
and reproduction. This form
of kingdom classification
includes five kingdoms
Monera, Protista, Fungi,
Plantae and Animalia.

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Five Kingdom
The five-kingdom Classification
classification that we see today was not the initial result of the
classification of living organisms. Carolus Linnaeus first came up with a two-
kingdom classification, which included only the kingdom Plantae and kingdom
Animalia.

The two-kingdom classification lasted for a very long time but did not last forever
because it did not take into account many major parameters while classifying. There
was no differentiation of the eukaryotes and prokaryotes; neither unicellular and
multicellular; nor photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic.
Putting all the organisms in either plant or animal kingdom was insufficient because
there were a lot of organisms which could not be classified as either plants or
animals.
All this confusion led to a new mode of classification which had to take into account
cell structure, the presence of cell wall, mode of reproduction, and mode of nutrition.
As a result, R H Whittaker came up with the concept of the five-kingdom
classification.
A. Kingdom Monera

Kingdom Monera is considered as the most primitive group of organisms and

monerans are the most abundant of all. It generally comprises unicellular organisms with
a prokaryotic cell organization. They lack well-defined cell structures including the
nucleus and other cell organelles.

They consist of prokaryotes which include species like the Cyanobacteria,

archaebacteria, mycoplasma, and bacteria are a few members of this kingdom.
 Click icon to add picture

The general features of Monerans are:

1.Monerans are present in both aerobic and anaerobic environments.

2.Some have rigid cell walls, while some do not.
3.The membrane-bound nucleus is absent in monerans.
4.Habitat – Monerans are found everywhere in hot or thermal springs, on the deep ocean floor, under ice,
in deserts, and also inside the bodies of plants and animals.
5.They can be autotrophic, i.e., they can synthesize food on their own while some others have a
heterotrophic, saprophytic, parasitic, symbiotic, communalistic, and mutualistic mode of nutrition.
6.Locomotion is with the help of flagella.
7.Circulation is through diffusion.
8.Respiration in these organisms varies, few are obligate aerobes, while some are obligate anaerobes and
facultative anaerobes
9.Reproduction is mostly asexual and few also reproduce by sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction is by
conjugation, transformation, and transduction. Asexual reproduction is by binary fission.
A. KINGDOM MONERA

Bacteria are categorized underneath the Kingdom Monera.

Features of Monerans
They possess the following important:

 Bacteria occur everywhere and they are microscopic in nature.

 The monera are unicellular organisms.
 They possess a cell wall and are prokaryotic.
 The cell wall is rigid and made up of peptidoglycan..
 Bacteria can be heterotrophic and autotrophic.
 The heterotrophic bacteria can be parasitic or saprophytic. The autotrophic bacteria can
be chemosynthetic or photosynthetic.

Types of Monerans
Bacteria can be classified into four types based on their shape:

 Coccus (pl.: cocci) – These bacteria are spherical in shape

 Bacillus (pl.: bacilli) – These bacteria are rod-shaped
 Vibrium (pl.: vibrio) – These bacteria are comma-shaped bacteria
 Spirillum (pl.: spirilla) – These bacteria are spiral-shaped bacteria
Monera has since been divided into Archaebacteria and Eubacteria .
B. Kingdom Protista

All unicellular eukaryotic organisms are placed under the Kingdom Protista.
The term Protista was first used by Ernst Haeckel in the year 1886. This
kingdom forms a link between other kingdoms of fungi, plants, and animals.
Kingdom Protista is an important phase in early evolution and the very
first protist probably evolved 1.7 billion years ago.
Kingdom Protista is a very large group comprising ofClick
at least 16add
icon to phyla.
pictureMany
species of this kingdom are the primary producers in the aquatic ecosystem and some
are responsible for serious human diseases like malaria.
General features of Kingdom Protista are as follows:

1.They are simple, unicellular, eukaryotic organisms.

2.Most of the protists live in water, some in moist soil or even the body of human and plants.
3.These organisms have a membrane-bound nucleus, endomembrane systems, mitochondria for cellular
respiration and some have chloroplasts for photosynthesis.
4.Nuclei contain multiple DNA strands and the number of nucleotides is significantly less.
5.Respiration – cellular respiration is the primarily aerobic process, but some living in the moist soil
underneath ponds or in digestive tracts of animals are facultative anaerobes.
6.Locomotion is often by flagella or cilia. Click icon to add picture
7.Nutrition- include both heterotrophic and autotrophic.
8.Reproduction – Some reproduce sexually and others asexually.
9.Some protists are pathogens of both plants and animals. Example: Plasmodium falciparum causes
malaria in humans.
 B. KINGDOM PROTISTA
Features of Protista
Protista has the following important:
 They are unicellular and eukaryotic organisms.
 Some of them have cilia or flagella for mobility.
 Sexual reproduction is by a process of cell fusion and zygote formation.
Sub-groups of Protista
Kingdom Protista is categorized into subsequent groups:
 Chrysophytes: The golden algae (desmids) and diatoms fall under this group. They are found in marine and
freshwater habitats.
 Dinoflagellates: They are usually photosynthetic and marine. The color they appear is dependent on the key
pigments in their cells; they appear red, blue, brown, green or yellow.
 Euglenoids: Most of them live in freshwater habitation in motionless water. The cell wall is absent in them, instead,
there is a protein-rich layer called a pellicle.
 Slime Molds: These are saprophytic. The body moves along putrefying leaves and twigs and nourishes itself on
organic material. Under favorable surroundings, they formed an accumulation called Plasmodial slime molds.
 Protozoans: They are heterotrophs and survive either as parasites or predators.
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 C. KINGDOM FUNGI

Fungi are a group of organisms that are found everywhere from air, water, and land
to the soil. They are also found in plants and animals.

Some fungi are microscopic, and even though fungi appear like plants, they are in
fact closely related to animals.

Fungi have great economic importance and show a great diversity in morphology
and habitat. More than 70,000 species of fungi have been recognized and the organisms of
kingdom fungi include mushrooms, yeasts, and molds.

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 C. KINGDOM FUNGI

The kingdom of fungi includes molds, mushrooms, yeast, etc. They show a variety of applications in domestic as
well as commercial purposes.

Features of Kingdom Fungi

 The fungi are filamentous, excluding yeast (single-celled).
 Their figure comprises slender, long thread-like constructions called hyphae. The web of hyphae is called
mycelium.
Some of the hyphae are unbroken tubes that are jam-packed with multinucleated cytoplasm. Such hyphae are
labeled Coenocytic hyphae.
 The other type of hyphae has cross-walls or septae.
 The cell wall of fungi is composed of polysaccharides and chitin.
 Most of the fungi are saprophytes and are heterotrophic.
 Some of the fungi also survive as symbionts. Some are parasites. Some of the symbiont fungi live in association
with algae, like lichens. Some symbiont fungi live in association with the roots of higher plants, such as
mycorrhiza.
THE FUNGI KINGDOM

Mushrooms + lichen​ Yeasts • Molds

• Multicellular • Unicellular • Unicellular

• Heterotrophic • Eukaryotic • Heterotrophic

• Aerobic • Aerobic • Aerobic — but can survive

extremely low oxygen levels

• Asexual
• Spore reproduction
• Spore reproduction

reproduction through mitosis

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 D. KINGDOM PLANTAE

Features of Kingdom Plantae

 The kingdom Plantae is filled with all eukaryotes which have
chloroplast.
 Most of them are autotrophic in nature, but some are
heterotrophic as well.
 The Cell wall mainly comprises cellulose.
Plants have two distinct phases in their lifecycle. These phases
alternate with each other. The diploid saprophytic and the
haploid gametophytic phase. The lengths of the diploid and
haploid phases vary among dissimilar groups of plants.
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 E. KINGDOM ANIMALIA

Features of Kingdom Animalia

 All multicellular eukaryotes which are heterotrophs and lack cell
wall are set aside under this kingdom.
 The animals are directly or indirectly dependent on plants for food.
Their mode of nutrition is holozoic. Holozoic nutrition
encompasses ingestion of food and then the use of an internal
cavity for digestion of food.
 Many of the animals are adept for locomotion.
 They reproduce by sexual mode of reproduction.

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 lesson summary
 The five-kingdom classification of living organisms took a lot into consideration and is till now the most efficient
system.
 The older system of classification was based only on one single characteristic according to which two highly
varied organisms were grouped together. For example, the fungi and plants were placed in the same group based
on the presence of the cell wall. In the same way, unicellular and multicellular organisms were also grouped
together.
 Therefore, all the organisms were classified again into the five kingdoms known as the five-kingdom
classification, starting with Monera, where all the prokaryotic unicellular organisms were placed together.
 Following that, all the eukaryotic unicellular organisms were placed under the kingdom Protista.
 The organisms were then classified based on the presence and absence of a cell wall. The ones without the cell
wall were classified under kingdom Animalia and the ones with cell wall were classified under kingdom Plantae.
 The organisms under kingdom Plantae were further classified into photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic, which
included Plantae and fungi respectively.
 This system of classification of living organisms is better than following the older classification of plants and
animals because it eradicated the confusion of putting one species in two different kingdoms .

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