Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE

Biology

Characteristics, Classification & Features of

Organisms
Contents
Characteristics of Living Organisms Concept &
Uses of Classification Systems Concept & Uses of
Classification Systems Continued Features
of Organisms Features of Organisms
Continued
 Characteristics of Living Organisms
Your notes

Characteristics of Living Organisms

Movement: an action by an organism or part of an organism causing a change of
position or place

Respiration: the chemical reactions that break down nutrient molecules in living cells to
release energy for metabolism

Sensitivity: the ability to detect or sense stimuli in the internal or external environment
and to make appropriate responses

Growth: a permanent increase in size and dry mass by an increase in cell number or cell
size or both

Reproduction: the processes that make more of the same kind of organism

Excretion: the removal from organisms of toxic materials, the waste products of
metabolism (chemical reactions in cells including respiration) and substances in excess
of requirements

Nutrition: the taking in of materials for energy, growth and development; plants require
light, carbon dioxide, water and ions; animals need organic compounds, ions and usually
need water

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Use this mnemonic to help you remember these processes:

MRS. GREN

Movement
Respiration
Sensitivity
Growth and development
Reproduction
Excretion
Nutrition
 Concept & Uses of Classification Systems
Your notes

How Organisms are Classified

There are millions of species of organisms on Earth

A species is defined as a group of organisms that can reproduce to produce fertile

offspring

These species can be classified into groups by the features that they share e.g. all
mammals have bodies covered in hair, feed young from mammary glands and have
external ears (pinnas)

The Binomial System

Organisms were first classified by a Swedish naturalist called Linnaeus in a way that
allows the subdivision of living organisms into smaller and more specialised groups

The species in these groups have more and more features in common the more
subdivided they get

He named organisms in Latin using the binomial system where the scientific name of an
organism is made up of two parts starting with the genus (always given a capital letter)
and followed by the species (starting with a lower case letter)

When typed binomial names are always in italics (which indicates they are Latin) e.g.
Homo sapiens

The sequence of classification is: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus,
Species
 Your notes

Linnaeus’s system of classification

Examiner Tips and Tricks

The order of classification can be remembered by using a mnemonic like:

KING PHILIP CAME OVER FOR GRAN’S SPAGHETTI

Dichotomous Keys
Keys are used to identify organisms based on a series of questions about their features

Dichotomous means ‘branching into two’ and it leads the user through to the name of
the organism by giving two descriptions at a time and asking them to choose

Each choice leads the user onto another two descriptions

In order to successfully navigate a key:
1. You need to pick a single organism to start with, or you may be presented with an
unfamiliar one as part of an exam questions
Your notes
2. Follow the statements from the beginning. Each statement or question you should
be able to answer using the information provided in the question or an image given
as part of the question.

3. Eventually there will be no more statements or questions left and you will have the
name of the organism

4. You then pick another organism and start at the beginning of the key again,
repeating until all organisms are named

Example of a dichotomous key #1

 Your notes

Example of a dichotomous key #2

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Simple dichotomous keys almost always come up in the multiple choice paper, so
make sure you can use [Link] occasionally they show up in the theory paper, and
when they do you almost always have to use one instead of constructing one, so Your notes
focus on this rather than spending hours learning to construct them yourself!
 Concept & Uses of Classification Systems Continued
Your notes

Reflecting Evolutionary Relationships: Extended

Extended Tier Only
Classification systems aim to reflect evolutionary relationships between species

Traditional biological classification systems grouped organisms based on

the features that they shared

If organisms shared more similar features then they were said to be more closely
related

In the past, scientists have encountered many difficulties when trying to determine
the evolutionary relationships of species based on this method

Using the physical features of species (such as colour/shape/size) has many

limitations and can often lead to the wrong classification of species

Using DNA to Classify Organisms: Extended

Extended Tier Only
Organisms share features because they originally descend from a common ancestor

Example: all mammals have bodies covered in hair, feed young from mammary glands
and have external ears (pinnas)

Originally, organisms were classified using morphology (the overall form and shape of
the organism, e.g. whether it had wings or legs) and anatomy (the detailed body
structure as determined by dissection)

As technology advanced, microscopes, knowledge of biochemistry and eventually

DNA sequencing allowed us to classify organisms using a more scientific approach

Studies of DNA sequences of different species show that the more similar the base
sequences in the DNA of two species, the more closely related those two species are
(and the more recent in time their common ancestor is)

This means that the base sequences in a mammal’s DNA are more closely related to all
other mammals than to any other vertebrate groups
 DNA sequences can show how closely related different species are

The sequences above show that Brachinus armiger and Brachinus hirsutus are more Your notes
closely related than any other species in the list as their DNA sequences are identical
except for the last but one base ([Link] has a T in that position whereas [Link] has
an A)

As DNA base sequences are used to code for amino acid sequences in proteins, the
similarities in amino acid sequences can also be used to determine how closely related
organisms are
 Features of Organisms
Your notes

The Five Kingdoms

The first division of living things in the classification system is to put them into one of five
kingdoms. They are:

Animals

Plants

Fungi

Protoctists

Prokaryotes

Main features of all animals:

they are multicellular

their cells contain a nucleus but no cell walls or chloroplasts

they feed on organic substances made by other living things

A typical animal cell

Main features of all plants:

they are multicellular

their cells contain a nucleus, chloroplasts and cellulose cell walls

they all feed by photosynthesis
 Your notes

A typical plant cell

The Animal Kingdom

Several main features are used to place organisms into groups within the animal
kingdom

Vertebrates
All vertebrates have a backbone

There are 5 classes of vertebrates

Vertebrate Table
Your notes
 Your notes

Vertebrate classification

Invertebrates
Invertebrates do not possess a backbone

One of the morphological characteristics used to classify invertebrates is whether they

have legs or not

All invertebrates with jointed legs are part of the arthropod phylum

They are classified further into the following groups:

Arthropod groups table

 Your notes

Arthropod classification

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Make sure that you are aware of the distinction between the main features of a group
of organisms and the defining features of a group:

An exam question might ask you to state the main features of a group of
organisms; these are given above, and some of these main features are shared
between the groups, e.g. all of the vertebrates have a backbone, and all of the
arthropods have segmented bodies
It is also possible that an exam question might ask you to give a defining feature
of one of these groups, i.e. a feature that sets a group apart from the other
groups, e.g. mammals have fur while the other vertebrates do not, and Your notes
crustaceans have 2 pairs of antennae while this is not the case for the other
groups of arthropods
 Features of Organisms Continued
Your notes

The Five Kingdoms: Extended

Extended Tier Only
The first division of living things in the classification system is to put them into one of five
kingdoms

They are:

Animals

Plants

Fungi

Protoctists

Prokaryotes

Main features of all fungi (e.g. moulds, mushrooms, yeast)

usually multicellular

cells have nuclei and cell walls not made from cellulose

do not photosynthesize but feed by saprophytic (on dead or decaying material) or

parasitic (on live material) nutrition
 A typical fungal cell

Main features of all Protoctists (e.g. Amoeba, Paramecium, Plasmodium) Your notes
most are unicellular but some are multicellular

all have a nucleus, some may have cell walls and chloroplasts

meaning some protoctists photosynthesise and some feed on organic

substances made by other living things

Two examples of protoctist cells

Main features of all Prokaryotes (bacteria, blue-green algae)

often unicellular

cells have cell walls (not made of cellulose) and cytoplasm but no nucleus or
mitochondria
 Your notes

A typical bacterial cell

The Plant Kingdom: Extended

Extended Tier Only
At least some parts of any plant are green, caused by the presence of the pigment
chlorophyll which absorbs energy from sunlight for the process of photosynthesis

The plant kingdom includes organisms such as ferns and flowering plants

Ferns
Have leaves called fronds

Do not produce flowers but instead reproduce by spores produced on the underside of
fronds
 Your notes

Ferns

Ferns reproduce by spores found in the underside of their fronds

Flowering plants
Reproduce sexually by means of flowers and seeds

Seeds are produced inside the ovary found at the base of the flower

Can be divided into two groups – monocotyledons and dicotyledons

 Your notes

Wheat plants are monocotyledons

Sunflowers are dicotyledons

How do you distinguish between monocotyledons and

dicotyledons?
Flowers

Flowers from monocotyledons contain petals in multiples of 3 while flowers from

dicotyledons contain petals in multiples of 4 or 5

Leaves

Leaves from monocotyledons have parallel leaf veins while leaves from
dicotyledons have reticulated leaf veins
Reticulated = form a web-like network throughout the leaf
 Leaves from monocotyledons are narrow and grass-like while leaves from
dicotyledons tend to have broader leaves that come in a wide range of shapes
Your notes

Comparing monocots and dicots

Examiner Tips and Tricks

Identification of monocotyledons and dicotyledons comes up fairly frequently in the
multiple choice paper and so it is worth learning the two differences between their
flowers and leaves.

Viruses: Extended
Extended Tier Only
Viruses are not part of any classification system as they are not considered living things

They do not carry out the seven life processes for themselves, instead they take over a
host cell’s metabolic pathways in order to make multiple copies of themselves

Virus structure is simply genetic material (RNA or DNA) inside a protein coat
 Your notes

Structure of a typical virus