Download Classification of Organisms

Classification of Organisms
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Taxonomy

The science of
describing, naming, and
classifying organisms
How Did We Get Our Modern
System of Classification?
Binomial Nomenclature

A system for giving each organism a
two-word scientific name that consists
of the genus name followed by the
species name

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish biologist in
the 1700s

Approach has been universally
adopted

The organism’s “scientific name”
Genus & Species

A level of classification that comes after family and
that contains similar species

The first word in the scientific name
– Capitalized

The second word (the species name)
– Lowercased

Homo sapiens
Family

Similar genera

Hominidae (Great Apes)
Order

A grouping of similar families

Primates
Class

A grouping of orders
with common properties

Mammalia
Phylum

Classes with similar
characteristics

Chordata (subphylum:
Vertebrata)
Kingdom

Similar phyla grouped together

Animalia
Domain

Largest and most inclusive taxonomic category

Similar kingdoms grouped together

3 domains
– Archaea (prokaryotes)
– Bacteria (prokaryotes)
– Eukarya (4 kingdoms of eukaryotes)
Domain
Domain
Domain

Archaea (prokaryotes)
– Kingdom Archaebacteria
– Live in extreme environments: volcanic hot springs, brine
pools, black organic mud
– Cell wall lacks peptidoglycan (murein): made of sugars and
amino acids

Bacteria (prokaryotes)
– Kingdom Eubacteria
– Free-living soil organisms to deadly parasites
– Cell wall contains peptidoglycan
Domain

Eukarya
– Kingdom Protista
– Kingdom Fungi
– Kingdom Plantae
– Kingdom Animalia
How Do I Remember It All?
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Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Biological Species

A group of organisms that can reproduce only
among themselves and that are usually
contained in a geographic region
Convergent Evolution

The process by which
unrelated species become
more similar as they
adapt to the same kind of
environment
Analogous Characters

Similarities that arise through convergent
evolution
Phylogeny

The evolutionary
history of a species or
taxonomic group

Discovered through
molecular sequencing
data and
morphological data
matrices
Cladistics

A phylogenetic classification system that uses
shared derived characters and ancestry as the
sole criterion for grouping taxa

Example: birds and mammals:
– a backbone is an ancestral character
– feathers are a derived character
Cladogram

A diagram that is based on patterns of shared, derived
traits and that shows the evolutionary relationships
between groups of organisms