Classification of Living Things Ch.11 Notes

Why do we classify things?

! Supermarket aisles! Libraries! Classes! Teams/sports! Members of a family! Roads! Cities! Money

What is classification?

! Classification: putting things into orderly groups based on similar characteristics

! Taxonomy: the science of describing, naming, and classifying organisms

Early classification

! Aristotle was the first to try to organize living things over 2,000 years ago, he grouped everything into

simple groups such as animals or plants

! He then grouped animals according to if they had blood or didn’t have blood, and if they had live young or laid eggs, and so on…

The modern system of classification has 8 levels:

!Domain !Kingdom !Phylum !Class

!Order !Family !Genus !Species

Helpful way to remember the 8 levels

! Dumb kids playing catch on freeways get squashed

! Or…make up your own…

! D K P C O F G S! Dodgers Keep People Confident On Finally Getting Series

Kingdom Animalia

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■ Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic, and heterotrophic (can’t make their own food).

■ Animal cells have NO CELL WALLS. ■ Most members of the Animal Kingdom

can move from place to place. ■ Some are permanently attached to

surfaces such as sponges and barnacles.

■ Fish, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, and mammals-including humans belong to the Kingdom Animalia.

■ This Kingdom also includes sponges, jellyfish, worms, sea stars, and insects.

Kingdom Plantae

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■ Plants are eukaryotic, multicellular and carry out photosynthesis. They are autotrophs (make their own food).

■ The cells of plants have cell walls, that contain the polysaccharide cellulose.

■ Plant cells are specialized for different functions, such as photosynthesis, the transport of materials, and support.

■ Kingdom Plantae includes mosses, ferns, cone-bearing plants (gymnosperms), and flowering plants (angiosperms).

Kingdom Protista

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■ These organisms are placed here more because of What They Are Not than What They Are.

■ Kingdom Protista contains all eukaryotes that are NOT Plants, Animal, or Fungi, more than 50,000 species in all. Kingdom Protista includes unicellular and a few simple multicellular EUKARYOTES.

■ Eukaryotic cells have nuclei and organelles that are surrounded by membranes.

■ The cells of multicellular protists are not specialized to perform specific functions in the organisms.

■ Includes Euglena and Amoeba.

Kingdom Fungi

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■ Fungi are eukaryotes, and most are multicellular.

■ The cells of fungi have cell walls that contain a material called chitin.

■ These organisms are heterotrophic and obtain their nutrients by releasing digestive enzymes into a food source.

■ They absorb their food after it has been digested by the enzymes.

■ Fungi act either as decomposers or as parasites in nature.

■ Kingdom Fungi includes molds, mildews, mushrooms, and yeast.

Binomial Nomenclature

! Developed by Carolus Linnaeus

! Swedish Biologist 1700’s ! Classified organisms based

on structure or characteristics

! Two-name naming system

! Genus and species named using Latin or Greek words

Rules used to write scientific names

Homo sapiens ! An organism’s genus is always written first;

the organism’s species is always written second

! The genus is Capitalized; the species is written in lower case

! Scientific names of organisms are always italicized or underlined

Binomial NomenclatureScientific names help scientists to communicate

Some species have very similar common names

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Binomial Nomenclature

Which TWO are more closely related?

copyright cmassengale

These two…they belong to the same genus Ursus! The panda doesn’t

Pandas are in the same family as polar bears and grizzly bears, but not the same genus.

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Cladogram

! Diagram showing how organisms are related based on shared, derived characteristics such as feathers, hair, or scales

copyright cmassengale

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Primate Cladogram

copyright cmassengale

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Lets Practice

Dichotomous KeysA dichotomous key is a tool that allows the user to determine the identity of items in the natural world, such as trees, wildflowers, mammals, reptiles, rocks, and fish. Keys consist of a series of choices that lead the user to the correct name of a given item. "Dichotomous" means "divided into two parts". Therefore, dichotomous keys always give two choices in each step.

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Lets Practice

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