Characteristics of & Classification of Life
What are
living things?
What are the
characteristics
of life?
 Organism= a living thing
 Animals, plants, fungi, microbes,
etc.
 Death is NOT nonliving b/c to
die, one has to live first
 To be considered living, a thing
must:
1) need/use food & H2O—energy
2) composed of cells
3) reproduces/makes more of its
kind
4) exchange gases (CO2 & O2)
5) grow & change over a life time
6) move!
7) React to the environment
8) DIE! Have a finite life span
9) Adapt/evolve over time or go
extinct
10) Excrete wastes
11) Composed of the same basic
chemicals: H2O,
carbohydrates, proteins, lipids,
& nucleic acids
12) Can heal itself
What are the
basic
principles of
biology?
What is
biological
classification?
What are the
levels of
biological
classification?
13) Maintain homeostasis=
balanced internally: mess
w/homeostasis & u die!
 The “big ideas” that connect the
study of life:
1) living things are VERY
different from e@ other, but
strangely the same
2) organisms evolve-change over
a loooooong time!
3) Structure & function are
complementary—how it’s
built, enables it to do its job
effectively
4) Chemistry & physics work the
same in life and non life
 Biological classification=
organizing living things so they
are easier to study
 Taxonomy= the study of
biological classification
 Organisms are grouped
according to cell type, # of cells
& how it gets food
1) Domain: 3 domains
 Bacteria
 Archaea: prokaryotes=
unicellular organism w/out a
nucleus—DNA floats freely
 Eukarya: eukaryotes= cells
w/ DNA enclosed in a nucleus
2) Kingdom: 4 eukaryotic
kingdoms
 Protists=most are unicellularslime molds, algae/kelp,
amoeba, diatoms,
paramecium
 Fungi= decomposers-molds,
yeast, mushrooms, puffballs
 Platae= multicellular
autotrophs= make their own
food
 Animalia= multicellular
heterotrophs= must search
for food
3) Phylum: (phyla is plural)
 2 plant kingdom phyla
 9 animal kingdom phyla
4) Class: many classes in e@
phyla
What did I
learn from the
video “Animal
Classification”
5) Order: many orders in e@
class
6) Family: many families in e@
order
7) Genus: (genera) several genera
in e@ family
8) Species: individual organism, a
few species in e@ genus
 Things can make offspringhorse + donkey=mule
 “Kids prefer candy over
fancy green salads”
 Aristotle created the first
classification system
 Over 3.5 million known
organisms
 Common names are NOT
used by everyone b/c of
differing languages
 Latin is the language of
science b/c it’s a “dead”
language so it doesn’t change
 Species are individual
organisms & do not look like
any other organism
 Linnaeus created the modern
classification system
 Classification starts out
broad and narrows to specific
organisms
 Name for man is “homo
sapiens”
 Kingdom, phylum, class,
order, family, genus, species