Chapter 1- The Living World

For an organism to be living, there are some features that are imperative. Some of these are:

 Growth and Development: The expansion in cells’ number and mass through cell
division.
 Reproduction and Proliferation: The method involved creating posterity and
proceeding with the progeny.
 Metabolism and Digestion: A progression of biochemical responses happening in the
body to shape and change substance organization.
 Tactile sensation or Material sense: Ability to sense the environment
 Self-organize: The very characterizing qualities of every living organic entity.
 Mortality
 Organization: Cognizance: The feeling of monitoring one’s environmental factors,
activities, and aims.

1.1 DIVERSITY IN THE LIVING WORLD

 According to a survey, the number of species that are known and described are between
1.7-1.8 million. They are collectively referred to as biodiversity.
 Biological diversity means the number and types of organisms present on the earth, forms
of life in the living world. The living world includes all the living organisms, such as
microorganisms, plants, animals and humans.

1.1.1 NEED FOR CLASSIFICATION.

 It is almost impossible to study all the living organisms. So, it is necessary to devise some
means to make this possible. This can be done by classifying the organisms.
 Classification is the process by which organisms are grouped into categories based on
some easily observable characters.
 Classification is not a single step process. It involves hierarchy of steps in which each step
represents a rank or category. Since, the category is a part of overall taxonomic
arrangement, it is called the taxonomic category and all categories together constitute the
taxonomic hierarchy.
 Biological classification is the scientific arrangement of organisms in a hierarchy of
groups and sub-groups on the basis of similarities and differences in their traits.
 The scientific name for these groups is taxa.
 Advantages of Classification
(a) It helps to identify an organism easily.
(b) New organisms easily get correct place in their respective groups.
(c) It makes study of fossils easy.
(d) It also helps in building evolutionary pathways.
(e) It becomes easy to know the features of whole group by studying one or two
organisms of the group.
Thus, based on these characteristics, all living organisms are classified into
different taxa.

1.1.2 NOMENCLATURE
Nomenclature is the system of naming living organism in a way that a particular organism is
known by the same name all over the world.

i. Common Name
The common names or vernacular names are the local names given to an organism in a specific
language in a particular region. There are different names of a same organism in different regions
even with in a country.
Advantages of Common Names
(a) Common names are easy to pronounce and are short, e.g., Cat or billi.
(b) People are familiar to these names since childhood.
(c) They are based on some features of organisms, e.g., Cowa (crow—Caawn-Caawn sound).
Dis-Advantages of Common Names
(a) All the organisms cannot be named by this method as there are organism of different sizes
and shapes. e.g., Microbes.
(b) An organism may have several names in a given language, e.g., 8 Hindi names of prickly
poppy and water lily has 15 English names.
(c) A common names may have different meanings in different countries, e.g., Maize, means
wheat and other grains in USA and it is called corn in common wealth countries.
(d) Common names may have little relevance, e.g., Lady’s finger (okra), widows tears
(Tradescantia-Rhoeo), etc.
(e) Common names may be incorrect, e.g., Jelly fish (a coelenterate), silverfish (an arthropod),
starfish (an echinoderm) are not real fishes.
(f) These names are not useful for scientific studies.

ii. Scientific Names

A scientific name is given by biologists. These names represent a particular organism in every
part of the world. The system of providing scientific names is called binomial nomenclature.
The scientific names must be
(a) acceptable in every part of the world.
(b) assigned on agreed principles and criteria.
(c) different for each species and not used for other organisms earlier.

1.1.3 IDENTIFICATION
 It aims at finding the correct name and appropriate position of an organism. The
morphological and anatomical characters are examined for proper identification.
 Nomenclature or naming is only possible when the organism is described correctly and we
know to what organism the name is attached to.

1.1.4 BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE

 Scientists all over the world have established procedures to assign a scientific name to
each known organism. This is acceptable to biologists all over the world.
 Biologists follow universally accepted principles to provide scientific names to known
organisms. Each name has two components – the Generic name and the specific epithet.
This system of providing a name with two components is called Binomial nomenclature.
 This naming system given by Carolus Linnaeus is practised by biologists all over the
world.

1.1.5 RULES OF BINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE

Rules of binomial nomenclature were initially framed by Linnaeus in his books, Species
Plantarum and Systema Naturae.
 The rules were revised again by the following nomenclature codes
(i) International Code for Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN).
(ii) International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN).
(iii) International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB) .
(iv) International Code of Viral Nomenclature (ICVN).
(v) International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP).
1.1.6 UNIVERSAL RULES OF NOMENCLATURE
The rules framed by Linnaeus and by these codes are as follows
(i) The names are generally in Latin and written in italics. They are Latinised or derived
from Latin irrespective of their origin.
(ii) The first word in a biological name represent the genus while, the second component
denotes the specific epithet.
(iii) Both the words in a biological name, when handwritten are separately underlined or
printed in italics to indicate their Latin origin.
(iv) The first word denoting the genus starts with capital letter while, the specific epithet
starts with a small letter, e.g., Mangifera indica.
 Example: The scientific name of mango is written as Mangifera indica. In this
name Mangifera represents the genus while indica, is a particular species, or
a specific epithet.
(v) Generic and common names may be same, e.g., Gorilla gorilla.
(vi) No names are recognised prior to those used by Linnaeus in 1753 for plants in Species
Plantarum and in 1758 for animals in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae.
(vii) The name of categories higher than the rank of genus are not printed in italics. Bold
letters can, however be used.
(viii) Name of the author appears after the specific epithet, i.e., at the end of the biological
name and is written in an abbreviated form,
 Example, Mangifera indica Linn. It indicates that this species was first described
by Linnaeus
(viii) When a species is transferred or revised, the name of the original worker is retained
but in parenthesis, e.g., Syzygium cumini (L) Skeels.

Advantages of Binomial Nomenclature

(i) Binomial names are universally acceptable and recognised.
 (ii) They remain same in all languages.
(iii) The names are small and comprehensive.
(iv) There is a mechanism to provide a scientific name to every newly discovered organism.
(v) The names indicate relationship of a species with other species present in the same genus.
(vi) A new organism can be easily provided with a new scientific name.

1.1.7 TAXONOMY
 It is the science of identification, classification and nomenclature. Based on their special /
characteristics, all living organisms can be classified into different taxa. This process of
classification is called taxonomy.
 Carolus Linnaeus is known as father of taxonomy.
 Characterisation, Identification, Classification and Nomenclature are the processes that are
basic to taxonomy.
a). Basis of taxonomy
 External and internal structure, (comparative morphology)
 the structure of cell, (cytology)
 development process (embryology)
 Ecological information (ecology)
b). The basic processes for taxonomic studies are
(i) Organisms are described on the basis of morphology and other characteristics.
(ii) The description of characteristics helps in the placement of the organism in various
taxa.
(iii) A new taxon can be framed if the organism is different from the existing taxa.
(iv) The correct naming of an organism can be done after placing it in various taxon. A
new organism can be given a new name after following the standardized rules.

i. Classical Taxonomy (Old Taxonomy)

The concept of classical or old taxonomy exists since, the time of Aristotle and
Theophrastus and continued up to Linnaeus. It states that
(i) Species is the basic unit of taxonomy, that can be described on the basis of one or few
preserved specimens.
(ii) Species are fixed and do not change with time.
(iii) A species is delimited based on morphological features.
(iv) Organisms are classified on the basis of some limited features such as root
modification, leaf venation, floral structures, number of cotyledons in case of plants.
Due to the limited number of groups, many organisms could not be classified correctly.
This finally led to artificial system of classification.
ii. Modern Taxonomy (New Taxonomy)
 The concept of modern taxonomy was given by Julian Huxley (1940).
 It uses evidences from all the areas of biology like morphology, anatomy, biochemistry,
cell biology, physiology, genetics, evolution, etc.
 The modem taxonomy is based on the following features
(i) The studies are done on a huge number of organisms based on all the variations.
(ii) Study is also focused on sub-species, varieties, races and populations.
(iii) Species are not isolated. They are related by common descent and vary from them due
to accumulation of variations.
(iv) Species is considered as dynamic and ever-changing entity.
(v) Biological delimitation includes various branches of systematics, e.g., Cytotaxonomy,
experimental taxonomy, numerical taxonomy, chemotaxonomy, etc. This led to the
development of phylogenetic system or cladistics of classification.

1.1.8 SYSTEMATICS:
 Systematics is the branch of science that deals with unique properties of species and groups to
recognise, describe, name and arrange the diverse organisms according to an organised plan.
 The study of relationships between different organisms is known as systematics.
 Systematics takes into account evolutionary relationships between organisms
 The word systematics is derived from the Latin word ‘systema’ which means systematic
arrangement of organisms.
 Linnaeus used Systema Naturae as the title of his publication. He coined the term
Systematics in 1751.The scope of systematics was later enlarged to include identification,
nomenclature and classification.

1.1.9 TAXONOMIC CATEGORIES

Classification is not a single step process. It involves hierarchy of steps in which each step
represents a rank or category. Since, the category is a part of overall taxonomic arrangement, it
is called the taxonomic category and all categories together constitute the taxonomic hierarchy.

Taxon: Each category, referred to as a unit of classification, in fact, represents a rank and is
commonly termed as taxon (Pi. taxa). The term Taxon was first introduced by ICBN during 1956.
According to Mayr (1964) taxon is a group of any rank that is sufficiently distinct to be worthy
of being assigned a definite category. In simple words, taxon refers to a group of similar,
genetically related individuals having certain characters distinct from those of other groups.
A taxon that includes a common ancestral species and all the species descended from it is called a
clade or a monophyletic taxon.

1.1.10 TAXONOMIC HIERARCHY

 The taxonomic hierarchy is the system of arranging taxonomic categories in a descending
order. It was first introduced by Linnaeus (1751) and hence, it is also known as Linnaen
hierarchy.
 Groups represent category and category further denotes rank. Each rank or taxon
represents a unit of classification.
 These taxonomic groups/categories are distinct biological entities and not merely
morphological aggregates.

Obligate/Common Categories
 The taxonomic categories, which are always used in hierarchical classification of
organisms are called obligate or common categories.
 They are seven in number. In descending order, these are kingdom, phylum or division,
class, order, family, genus and species.
 All the members of taxonomic categories possess some similar characters, which are
different from those of others.
 The maximum similarity occurs in species, which is also the lowest category in the
hierarchy of categories.
 Similarity of characters decreases with the rise in hierarchy.

i. Species
Taxonomic studies consider a group of individual organisms with fundamental
similarities as a species (John Ray).

Species is considered as the lowest or basic taxonomic category, which consists of one or
more individuals of a populations that resemble one another more closely than individuals of
other species. The members of species interbreed freely and are reproductively isolated from
others. For example, Mangifera indica (mango), Solarium tuberosum (potato) and Panthera
leo (lion).
All the three names indica, tuberosum and leo represent the specific epithets while, the first words
Mangifera, Solanum and Panthera are genera and represents another higher level of taxon or
category.
Each genus may have one or more than one specific epithets representing different organisms, but
having morphological similarities. For example, Panthera has another specific epithet called tigris
and Solanum includes species like nigrum and melongena.

ii. Genus
Genus (John Ray) comprises a group of related species, which has more characters
common in comparison to species of other genera. In other words, genera are
aggregates of closely related species.

iii. Family
Family (John Ray) is a group of related genera with less number of similarities as compared to
 genus and species. All the genera of a family have some common or correlated features. They
are separable from genera of a related family by important differences in both vegetative and
reproductive features.
A plant family ends in a suffix -aeae and sub-family -oideae. While, an animal family has a
suffix -idae and sub-family -inae.

iii. Order
An order (Linnaeus) is a group of one or more related families that possess some
similar correlated characters, which are lesser in number as compared to a family or
genera.

v. Class
Class (Linnaeus) is a major category, which includes related orders. For example, order-
Primata comprises monkey, gorilla & gibbon and is placed in class—Mammalia along with
order—Carnivora that includes animals like tiger, cat and dog.
Class-Mammalia has other orders also.

vi. Phylum or Division

Phylum or Division (Cuvier, Eichler) is a taxonomic category higher than class and lower” in rank
to kingdom. The term Phylum is used for animals, while division is commonly employed for
plants.
It consists of more than one class having some similar corelated characters.
For example, Phylum— Chordata of animals contain following classes, e.g., Pisces, amphibians,
reptiles, aves and mammals.

vii. Kingdom
It is known to be the highest category in taxonomy. This includes all the organisms, which share a
set of distinguished characters. For example, all the animals belonging to various phyla are
assigned the highest category called kingdom.
For example, Animalia in the classification system of animals. Similarly, all the plants are kept in
kingdom—Plantae.
RH Whittaker. (1969) assigned five kingdom classification of organisms.
These are Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia.

Intermediate Categories
The taxonomic categories from species to kingdom are broad categories or obligate categories.
However, taxonomists have also developed sub-categories in this hierarchy to facilitate more
sound and scientific placement of various taxa. These sub-categories are sub-species (or varieties),
sub-genera, sub-families, sub-orders, sub-classes and sub-phyla.
These sub-categories are referred to as intermediate categories.