Lesson

10.A Taxonomy
Billions of different species existed on the Earth’s surface including those that
became extinct. Biologists develop a way of organizing these biological entities into
groups and categories according to their shared characteristics. This is
classification. Grouping organisms enable biologists to lessen their difficulty in
studying these different organisms.

What’s In

Direction: In your own words, define the following terms.

I. classification
II. description
III. hierarchy
IV. identification
V. nomenclature
VI. taxonomy

What’s New

TRUE OR FALSE

Direction: Identify the following. Write TRUE if the statement is correct and FALSE
if the statement is in correct.

1. All prokaryotes belong to Kingdom Monera.

2. Eukaryotes belongs to five kingdoms.
3. Kingdom Fungi is a group of unicellular prokaryotic organisms related to plants.
4. Monera are considered as the most primitive group of organisms.
5. Kingdom Protista are mostly unicellular eukaryotes, characteristically like plants
and animals.

1
 What is It

Taxonomy
Branch of biology that deals with the classification and naming of organisms.
Scientists group organisms on their characteristics that provides clues its
evolutionary relatedness among species. The first to classify organisms was Aristotle
(Greece,384-322BC) in which he clustered organisms into two major groups, the
plants and animals.
A Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707_1778), the father of taxonomy,
developed the system of classification and naming the biologists use today. He
categorized organisms into a series of taxa (singular: taxon) where related organisms
are placed. Then he hierarchically placed each taxon by the degree of relatedness
from the broadest to the smallest most distinct groups. In his classification system,
there were about five levels but was later improved to become more reliable. The
kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species are the seven levels that
comprised the hierarchy of classification to date. Nevertheless, some modifications
made depended on the categorized species. In plants, the kingdom divides into
division instead of phyla. In bacteria, species categorize further into strains. In
general, the Kingdom is the broadest taxon, classifying organisms according to the
type of cells and method of obtaining nutrients. The kingdom divides into phylum
(plural: phyla), which further divides into class. The next level of the taxon class is
the order followed by family. Families divide again into genus, then finally into
species.

Five Kingdom Classification

Robert H. Whittaker proposed this classification scheme in 1969, later
adopted by most biologists until today. In his five-kingdom classification, he
designated all prokaryotes into one kingdom called Monera, and all eukaryotes
divided into four kingdoms, namely, Protista, Plantae, Fungi, and Animalia. Although
this system of classification seems to be more accurate than the two-kingdom
classification scheme, placing of organisms into a particular group changes over
time. As biologist gain new information about an organism, they propose
rearrangement and changes in the classification,0 specifically at the species-level.

2
THE KINGDOM MONERA
All organisms of this kingdom are prokaryotes. Complexuctute was the basis
of classification of organisms, many centuries ago. According to R.H Whittaker’s five
kingdom classification all the bacteria were placed under the kingdom Monera.
Monera are considered as the most primitive group of organisms. They include
various types of bacteria and blue green algae. Monerans are most abundant of all
organisms, due to their versatility of their habitat. It is estimated that a single drop
of water contains 50 billion bacteria.

Characteristics
⚫ They are all primitive organisms.

⚫ All organisms of the kingdom are prokaryotes.

⚫ They are present in both living and non-living environment.

⚫ They can survive in harsh and extreme climatic conditions like in hot springs,

acidic soils etc.

⚫ They are unicellular organisms.

⚫ Membrane bound nucleus is absent.

⚫ DNA is in double stranded form, suspended in the cytoplasm of the organism,

referred as nucleoid.

⚫ A rigid wall is present.

⚫ Membrane bind cellular organelles like mitochondria are absent.

3
KINGDOM PROTISTA
All single celled organisms are placed under the Kingdom Protista. The term
Protista was first used by Ernst Haeckel in the year 1886.This kingdom forms a link
between other kingdoms of plants, animals, and fungi.
Characteristics
⚫ They are simple eukaryotic organisms.
⚫ Most of the organisms are unicellular, some are colonial, and some are
multicellular like algae.
⚫ Most of the protists live in water, some in moist soil or even the body human and
plants.
⚫ These organisms are eukaryotic, since they have a membrane bound nucleus and
endomembrane systems.
⚫ They have mitochondria for cellular respiration, and some have chloroplasts for
photosynthesis.
⚫ Nuclei of protists contain multiple DNA strands; the number of nucleotides is
significantly less than complex eukaryotes.
⚫ Protists are multicellular organisms, they are not a plant, animal, or fungus.
⚫ Protists are major component of plankton.
⚫ Some protists are pathogens of both animals and plants.
Example: Plasmodium falciparum causes malaria in humans

KINGDOM FUNGI
It is a group of multicellular eukaryotic organisms closely related to plants.
Non-photosynthetic, they obtain their nutrients from dead and decaying organic
matter and even diseased bodies of living organisms. Like plants, they also have a
cell wall with chitin as the principal component. They are mostly decomposers that
nourish themselves through absorption, unlike animals that feed by ingestion.
Characteristics

• Fungi are eukaryotic, non-vascular, non-motile and heterotrophic organisms.

• They may be unicellular or filamentous.

• They reproduce by means of spores. Fungi exhibit the phenomenon of alternation of

generation.

• Fungi lack chlorophyll and hence cannot perform photosynthesis.

• Fungi store their food in the form of starch.

• Biosynthesis of chitin occurs in fungi. The nuclei of the fungi are very small.

• The fungi have no embryonic stage.

• They develop from the spores.

• The mode of reproduction is sexual or asexual.

4
KINGDOM PLANTAE
Multicellular eukaryotes known to evolve from photosynthetic protists. This
comprises all plants that are characteristically non-motile, photosynthetic, and be
able to synthesize their complex organic molecules(autotrophs). They have a cell wall
made up of cellulose. Some examples are fruits bearings trees (e.g., mango and
guava) and ornamentals (e.g., orchids and roses)

⚫ They are multicellular organisms with walled and frequently vacuolate

eukaryotic cells.
⚫ These contain photosynthetic pigment in plastids. The principal mode of
nutrition is photosynthesis.
⚫ They are primarily non-motile and live anchored to a substrate.
⚫ Reproduction is primarily asexual or sexual. The reproductive organs are
multicellular. They form a multicellular embryo during development from the
zygote. Algae lack the embryo stage.
⚫ The life cycle consists of alternating haploid gametophyte and diploid
sporophyte generation. This phenomenon is called the alternation of
generation.

KINGDOM ANIMALIA
The most complex of all kingdoms regarding structure and function. They are
multicellular, cell wall-less eukaryotes that feed differently depending on the species,
either by ingestion, absorption, filtration, among others(heterotrophs).They are
motile, although small groups of this kingdom are sedentary or stationary in their
adult form. Reproductive strategy varies from species to another, but mostly sexual
means. Examples are birds, mammals, and fishes.
Characteristics
⚫ They are multicellular organisms which do not possess chlorophyll.
⚫ They are eukaryotic organisms.
⚫ Cell wall is absent.
⚫ Mode of nutrition is heterotrophic i.e. they depend on other organisms for food.
⚫ They have muscle cells due to which they have the capability to contract and relax the body
parts.
⚫ Reproduction is sexual. However, asexual reproduction is also found in lower forms.
⚫ During development, multicellular embryo is formed from the zygote.
⚫ They require oxygen for aerobic respiration.

5
BINOMIAL SYSTEM OF NOMENCLATURE
The scientific name is a way to address properly the identity crisis of
organisms. The need to a scientific name is to provide a universal means of
distinguishing one organism from another. An organism may have different names
based on the locality that varies from one provide to another or one country from the
other. For example, a house lizard or the common house gecko is ‘lupisak” in
Pampanga, while it is “butiki” in other provinces, although both are from the same
species, the Hemidactylus frenatus. Another example is the medicinal mushroom
called “reishi” in Japan and “lingshi” in China-both country uses a different name
for the sample species Ganoderma lucidum.
The binomial system of nomenclature uses two names derived from different
sources-geographical location of species, a person, or characteristics it possesses.
This naming system writes the first letter of the first name in the capital while the
rest, including all the letters of the second name are in lowercase. In case a scientific
name is handwritten, this system either underline both names (e.g., onion as Allium
cepa) or written in the italic form (e.g., mice as Mus musculus)

Basis of Scientific Names

Of all the languages available, the construction of scientific names uses Latin
in most cases although sometimes Greek is used. Both Latin and Greek names
describe the species characteristics, for example, Homo sapiens are Latin words in
which the name sapiens specifically means “wise” and Homo means “human.”
Scientific names can also commemorate a person (e.g., Draco Rizal, a flying lizard,
named in honor of Dr. Jose Rizal). Another way of constructing scientific names is a
geographical location (e.g., Archboldomys luzonensis, Musser, 1982, the Mount
Isarog shrewmouse, is endemic to Luzon, the Philippines specifically in Mt. Isarog).
There are also scientific names derived from an anagram or rearrangement of existing
names such as Alium cepa, where Allium derives from the name reversal of the genus
Muilla.

Elements of Scientific Name

1. Genus name – the first name in the scientific name (e.g., Hemidactylus)
2. Specific epithet – the second name in the scientific name (e.G. frenatus)
3. Authority – the name of the authorities such as the discover or the person who
published the species description. This is written after two names followed by the
date of publication (e.q. Hemidactylus frenatus, Schlegel, 1836)

6
 What’s More

Directions: Complete the following table for the taxonomic classification of human beings.
Taxon Man’s Rank Characteristics of organisms belonging to the taxon

Domain

Kingdom

Phylum

Class

Order

Family

Genus

Species

Subspecies

Assessment

Directions: Use the information above to complete the table below.

Kingdom Prokaryotes/Eukaryotes Distinguishable Example/s
characteristics

Monera

Protista

Animalia

Plantae

Fungi