A kingdom is a group of similar ones. Why are bacteria classified as a special kingdom of living nature? What we learned

Remember

What living organisms do you know?

Answer. Living organisms are viruses, bacteria, fungi, plants and animals.

What groups can living organisms known to you be divided into?

Questions after §8

1. What does the word “classification” mean? Why is classification needed?

Answer. Classification - ordering, distribution of organisms into groups, based on the similarity of external and internal structure, as well as family relations Living creatures.

2. Explain by what characteristics do scientists classify organisms as one species?

Answer. Main and smallest unit classification – species. Signs that allow organisms to be united into one species are similarities in structure and characteristics of life, capable of interbreeding and producing viable offspring similar to their parents.

3. Look at Figure 28. Which of the indicated kingdoms of living nature are already familiar to you? Give examples of representatives of these kingdoms.

Answer. Wildlife is divided into 5 kingdoms:

Viruses (representatives: influenza, smallpox, measles viruses);

Bacteria (representatives: lactic acid bacteria, tuberculosis bacillus, vibrio cholerae);

Mushrooms (representatives – yeast, mold, honey fungus);

Plants (representatives - pine, fern, birch);

Animals (representatives: earthworm, butterfly, frog).

4. What are the smallest organisms on Earth? How did scientists manage to discover and study them?

Answer. The smallest living organisms on Earth are viruses. They have a noncellular structure. The first viruses were discovered in 1892 by the Russian scientist D.I. Ivanovsky. Ivanovsky decided to find out whether any bacterium causes tobacco mosaic. He examined many diseased leaves under an optical microscope (there were no electronic ones yet) but in vain - no signs of bacteria could be found. “Or maybe they are so small that they cannot be seen?” - thought the scientist. If this is the case, then they must pass through filters that trap common bacteria on their surface. Similar filters already existed at that time. Ivanovsky placed a finely ground leaf of diseased tobacco into the liquid, which he then filtered. Bacteria were retained by the filter, and the filtered liquid had to be sterile and not capable of infecting a healthy plant if it came into contact with it. But she was infectious! This is the essence of Ivanovsky’s discovery. This is where the difference in size comes into play. Viruses are approximately 100 times smaller than bacteria, so they freely passed through all the filters and infected healthy plants, falling on them along with the filtered liquid. Bacteria are also distinguished by their ability to reproduce in artificially created nutrient media, but the viruses discovered by Ivanovsky did not do this. The term virus (from the Latin virus - poison) appeared later. This is how Ivanovsky discovered viruses - new uniform existence of life.

Initially, people shared everything wildlife on animals. This classification is reflected in the works of Aristotle. Even Carl Linnaeus is the founder modern classification species, living in the 18th century, still divided living organisms only into the plant and animal kingdoms.

In the mid-17th century, single-celled organisms were discovered, initially they were distributed into two known kingdoms, and only in the 19th century a separate kingdom was allocated for them - Protists.

After the electron microscope appeared, it became possible to study the smallest organisms in detail. Scientists have found that some of them have a nucleus, while others do not, and it was proposed to divide all living organisms according to this characteristic.

Modern system formed in 1969, when Robert Whittaker proposed dividing organisms based on the principle of their nutrition.

Robert Whittaker was the first to classify fungi as a separate kingdom.

Plant Kingdom

This kingdom includes multicellular autotrophic organisms, the cells of which have a durable shell, usually consisting of cellulose. Plants will be divided into a subkingdom of simple plants and a subkingdom of higher plants.

Animal Kingdom

This kingdom includes multicellular heterotrophic organisms; they are distinguished by independent mobility and nutrition mainly by ingesting food. The cells of such organisms usually do not have a dense wall.

Kingdom of Mushrooms

Fungi are multicellular saprophytes, that is, organisms that feed by processing dead organic matter. They differ in that their activities do not leave excrement. Fungi reproduce by spores. The kingdom is divided into a subkingdom of fungi and a subkingdom of myxomycetes; scientists argue about whether the latter should be classified as the kingdom of Mushrooms.

Kingdom Bacteria

The kingdom of Bacteria includes single-celled organisms that do not have a full-fledged nucleus. There are autotrophic bacteria and heterotrophic bacteria. Bacteria are usually motile. Since bacteria do not have a nucleus, they are classified as prokaryotes. All bacteria have a dense cell wall.

Kingdom Protists

Organisms whose cells have a nucleus are most often unicellular. Organisms fall into the kingdom of Protists according to the residual principle, that is, when they cannot be attributed to other kingdoms of organisms. Protists include algae and protozoa.

Kingdom of Viruses

Viruses are on the border between living and inanimate nature, these are non-cellular formations that are a set of complex molecules in a protein shell. Viruses can only reproduce while in a living cell of another organism.

Kingdom of the Chromists

Not a large number of organisms - some algae, several fungi-like organisms - have 2 nuclei in their cells. They were separated into a separate kingdom only in 1998.

Kingdom Archaea

The first archaea were found in geothermal springs

The simplest prenuclear single-celled organisms that were among the first to appear on Earth; they are adapted to live not in an oxygen atmosphere, but in a methane atmosphere, so they are found in extreme environments.

The plant kingdom amazes with its greatness and diversity. Wherever we go, no matter what corner of the planet we find ourselves in, everywhere we can meet representatives flora. Even the ice of the Arctic is no exception for their habitat. What is this plant kingdom? The types of its representatives are diverse and numerous. What is general characteristics plant kingdom? How can they be classified? Let's try to figure it out.

General characteristics of the plant kingdom

All living organisms can be divided into four kingdoms: plants, animals, fungi and bacteria.

The characteristics of the plant kingdom are as follows:

  • are eukaryotes, that is, plant cells contain nuclei;
  • are autotrophs, that is, they form organic substances from inorganic substances during photosynthesis using the energy of sunlight;
  • lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle;
  • unlimited growth throughout life;
  • contain plastids and cell walls made of cellulose;
  • as a spare nutrient use starch;
  • presence of chlorophyll.

Botanical classification of plants

The plant kingdom is divided into two subkingdoms:

  • lower plants;
  • higher plants.

Subkingdom "lower plants"

This subkingdom includes algae - the simplest in structure and the most ancient plants. However, the world of algae is very diverse and numerous.

Most of them live in or on the water. But there are algae that grow in the soil, on trees, on rocks and even in ice.

The body of algae is a thallus or thallus, which has neither roots nor shoots. Algae do not have organs and various tissues; the absorption of substances (water and mineral salts) occurs over the entire surface of the body.

The subkingdom “lower plants” consists of eleven divisions of algae.

Significance for humans: release oxygen; are eaten; used to produce agar-agar; are used as fertilizers.

Subkingdom "higher plants"

Higher plants include organisms that have well-defined tissues, organs (vegetative: root and shoot, generative) and individual development(ontogenesis) of which is divided into embryonic (embryonic) and postembryonic (post-embryonic) periods.

Higher plants are divided into two groups: spore plants and seed plants.

Spore-bearing plants spread through spores. Reproduction requires water. Seed plants spread by seeds. Water is not needed for reproduction.

Spore plants are divided into the following sections:

  • bryophytes;
  • lycophytes;
  • horsetails;
  • fern-like.

Seeds are divided into the following sections:

  • angiosperms;
  • gymnosperms.

Let's look at them in more detail.

Department "bryophytes"

Bryophytes are low-growing herbaceous plants, the body of which is divided into a stem and leaves; they have a kind of roots - rhizoids, the function of which is to absorb water and anchor the plant in the soil. Besides photosynthetic and ground tissue, mosses have no other tissues. Most mosses are perennial plants and grow only in moist areas. Bryophytes are the most ancient and most simple group. At the same time, they are quite diverse and numerous and are second only to angiosperms in the number of species. There are about 25 thousand of their species.

Bryophytes are divided into two classes - liver and phyllophytes.

Liverworts are the most ancient mosses. Their body is a branched flat thallus. They live mainly in the tropics. Representatives of liverworts: mosses Merchantia and Riccia.

Leafy mosses have shoots that consist of stems and leaves. A typical representative is cuckoo flax moss.

In mosses, sexual and asexual reproduction. Asexual can be either vegetative, when the plant reproduces by parts of stems, thallus or leaves, or spore-bearing. During sexual reproduction in bryophytes, special organs are formed in which immobile eggs and motile sperm mature. Sperm move through the water to the eggs and fertilize them. Then a capsule with spores grows on the plant, which, after maturation, scatter and spread over long distances.

Mosses prefer damp places, but they grow in deserts, on rocks, and in tundras, but they are not found in the seas and on highly saline soils, in shifting sands and glaciers.

Importance for humans: peat is widely used as fuel and fertilizer, as well as for the production of wax, paraffin, paints, paper, and in construction it is used as a heat-insulating material.

Divisions "mocophytes", "tail-like" and "fern-like"

These three divisions of spore plants have similar structure and reproduction, most of them grow in shady and moist places. Woody forms of these plants are very rare.

Ferns, club mosses and horsetails are ancient plants. 350 million years ago they were big trees, it was they who made up the forests on the planet, in addition, they are the sources of coal deposits at the present time.

The few plant species of the fern, horsetail and lycophyte divisions that have reached today, can be called living fossils.

Externally different types mosses, horsetails and ferns are different from each other. But they are similar internal structure and reproduction. They are more complex in structure than mossy plants (they have more tissue in their structure), but simpler than seed plants. They belong to spore plants, since they all form spores. Both sexual and asexual reproduction are also possible for them.

The most ancient representatives of these orders are club mosses. Nowadays, club moss can be found in coniferous forests.

Horsetails are found in the Northern Hemisphere, now they are represented only by herbs. Horsetails can be found in forests, swamps and meadows. A representative of the horsetails is horsetail, which usually grows in acidic soils.

Ferns - enough large group(about 12 thousand species). Among them there are both grasses and trees. They grow almost everywhere. Representatives of ferns are ostrich and bracken.

Significance for humans: ancient pteridophytes gave us deposits of coal, which is used as fuel and valuable chemical raw materials; some species are used for food, used in medicine, and used as fertilizers.

Department "angiosperms" (or "flowering")

Flowering plants are the most numerous and highly organized group of plants. There are more than 300 thousand species. This group makes up the bulk of the planet's vegetation. Almost all representatives of the plant world that surround us in ordinary life, both wild and garden plants, are representatives of angiosperms. Among them you can find all life forms: trees, shrubs and grasses.

The main difference between angiosperms is that their seeds are covered with a fruit formed from the ovary of the pistil. The fruit protects the seed and promotes its distribution. Angiosperms produce flowers, the organ of sexual reproduction. They are characterized by double fertilization.

Flowering plants dominate the vegetation cover as those most adapted to modern conditions life on our planet.

Value for humans: used for food; release oxygen into environment; used as building materials and fuel; used in the medical, food, and perfume industries.

Department "gymnosperms"

Gymnosperms are represented by trees and shrubs. There are no herbs among them. Most gymnosperms have leaves in the form of needles. Among gymnosperms, a large group of conifers stands out.

About 150 million years ago conifers dominated the planet's vegetation.

Meaning for humans: form coniferous forests; release large amounts of oxygen; used as fuel, building materials, shipbuilding, and furniture manufacturing; used in medicine and in the food industry.

Diversity of flora, plant names

The above classification continues; departments are divided into classes, classes into orders, followed by families, then genera and, finally, plant species.

The plant kingdom is huge and diverse, so it is customary to use botanical names for plants that have a double name. The first word in the name means the genus of plants, and the second means the species. This is what the taxonomy of the well-known chamomile will look like:

Kingdom: plants.
Department: flowering.
Class: dicotyledonous.
Order: astroflora.
Family: Asteraceae.
Genus: chamomile.
Type: chamomile.

Classification of plants according to their life forms, description of plants

The plant kingdom is also classified according to life forms, i.e. appearance plant organism.

  • Trees are perennial plants with lignified aerial parts and a distinct single trunk.
  • Shrubs are also perennial plants with lignified aerial parts, but, unlike trees, they do not have a clearly defined one trunk, and branching begins near the ground and several equal trunks are formed.
  • Shrubs are similar to shrubs, but are low-growing - no higher than 50 cm.
  • Subshrubs are similar to shrubs, but differ in that only the lower parts of the shoots are lignified, and the upper parts die off.
  • Lianas are plants with clinging, climbing and climbing stems.
  • Succulents are perennial plants with leaves or stems that store water.
  • Herbs are plants with green, succulent and non-woody shoots.

Wild and cultivated plants

Humans have also contributed to the diversity of the plant world, and today plants can also be divided into wild and cultivated.

Wild - plants in nature that grow, develop and spread without human help.

Cultivated plants come from wild plants, but are obtained through selection, hybridization or genetic engineering. These are all garden plants.

Greetings, friends of nature. Today I want to tell you which kingdoms of living nature and their representatives exist and rule on our land. They interested me in their rich diversity, since nature created all its diversity over many millions of years.

It turns out that this is not one kingdom, but several, and they cannot live without each other, because in nature everything is interconnected. Do you know the representatives of the kingdom of living nature?

How beautiful our earth is at any time of the year, where everything is so rationally arranged that all living organisms on it, to one degree or another, depend on each other.

Sometimes we don’t even think about it and don’t pay attention. I will try to tell you about what kingdoms of nature exist, what they are called and how many there are.

These tiny microorganisms - microbes and bacteria - exist everywhere you look. But they can only be seen under a microscope due to their small size. And so, looking into the microscope lens, you can find bacteria with different structures.

There are those in the form of a ball, and there are also straight bacteria - like a stick, some are curved, while others have bizarre shapes. Their variety is so rich that it would be difficult to list them all here.

Speaking about bacteria, all of them can be divided into:

  1. Useful, which are found in every living creature and help not only to properly digest food, but also protect against various diseases.
  2. Harmful, which cause various poisonings and disorders of the digestive system and other organs.

In addition, in this kingdom there are still bacteria and microbes, the first of which, as I said above, can be both useful and harmful. But microbes are only harmful.


This is how this kingdom of good and bad microorganisms works in brief.

Kingdom of Viruses

So, for example, the hepatitis virus can live in the human body without damaging liver cells for many years. Currently known:

After reading this name of the kingdom, you probably thought about Forest mushrooms? Of course, you thought correctly, but there are still a lot of mushrooms in the world, growing not only in the forest in the clearing, but also on the river and seabed.

More than 100 thousand species of mushrooms are known to our science today. It turns out that the most common yeast is . And the well-known forest mushrooms are edible and inedible.

Molds are also ubiquitous and can sometimes be difficult to get rid of.

They can be very harmful, as they lead to crop losses and diseases of people and animals. But among them there are healthy mushrooms, such as penicillium. Isn’t it a familiar name, apparently you guessed that the antibiotic penicillin is obtained from it.

Almost everyone who has their own personal plot, currant or gooseberry bushes grow. And everyone strives to treat them against powdery mildew in the spring. This plant disease is caused by powdery mildew fungi.

Well, who doesn't know this? fairy kingdom, which is so rich and varied?

Their representatives make us happy both at home and on the street. Every spring they bloom and bloom various plants, giving you and me flowers that exude a delicate aroma.

There are about 400 thousand species of plants on our planet. The table below explains what species the plant kingdom is divided into.

And I would also add medicinal and poisonous plants. I hope you don't mind this?

This numerous kingdom plays a huge role on our earth, as it enriches the air with oxygen and provides food for many animals. And you and I grow their representatives in our dacha:

  1. fruits and berries,
  2. fruits and vegetables,
  3. flowers and roses,
  4. trees and shrubs.

Trees give us cool shade in hot weather, and warm our homes in cold weather. Without it, life on earth will cease to exist.

animal kingdom

Microscopic amoeba and huge blue whale, what do they have in common, you ask? One is big, and the other is very tiny. And yet they are in this one kingdom. And why? Yes, because they feed, reproduce and breathe on their own.

Approximately 2 million species in the animal kingdom live on our planet. Unicellular or multicellular living organisms, they all exist and evolve for more than one million years.

Representatives of all these 5 kingdoms live and prosper, mutually complementing each other.

It is impossible to imagine a predatory wolf grazing in a clearing and chewing grass. Or a curly-haired lamb hunting a long-eared hare. After all, this is impossible in nature. So all the kingdoms of the living world cannot exist without each other.

Living organisms, dying, are processed by bacteria. Viruses, killing the host, provide food for bacteria. The bacteria, in turn, provide food to the plants. Plants produce oxygen and feed animals. The circulation of living beings in nature is indisputable proof of their interconnection.

Take a look at all this diversity of the kingdom of nature, which are presented here as a small but visual diagram and everything will become clear to you.

I hope you liked mine short review kingdoms of living nature and their representatives, and you learned from it a lot of useful things for yourself. Write about it in your comments, I will be interested to know about it. And that's all for today. Let me say goodbye to you and see you again.

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Biological systematics is a science that deals with the development of principles for the classification of all existing living organisms and the application of these principles to the construction whole system. Classification of living organisms implies their description and hierarchical placement in the system of organisms. According to one of these classifications, everything is divided into kingdoms.

Kingdoms of living nature - the highest taxonomic categories in The division of existing living nature into kingdoms is considered completely justified from the point of view of evolution. According to it, all organisms are divided into two superkingdoms (pre-nuclear and nuclear organisms), which include four kingdoms: crushed beans, plants, fungi and animals. Each kingdom is in turn divided into sub-kingdoms. Let's look at the main categories in more detail.

Non-nuclear and pre-nuclear organisms (prokaryotes) are organisms that do not have a formed cell nucleus. Genetic code has the form of a circular DNA chain and is present in the nucleotide without forming real chromosomes. Such organisms do not have a sexual process. Scientists consider prokaryotes various bacteria, including blue-green algae.

The other three kingdoms of living nature are eukaryotes. The first of these is plants. The most important difference plants from other organisms - their ability to feed autotrophically, that is, to synthesize certain organic substances from inorganic ones. Green plants carry out photosynthesis using energy sun rays. Thanks to photosynthesis, the gas composition of the atmosphere is maintained. So, plants - main source energy and food for all organisms on our planet.

The scheme is quite complicated. Initially, they are divided into lower and higher plants. The body of lower plants is not divided into root, stem and leaf. TO lower plants include algae, namely chrysophytes, siliceous, yellow-green, brown, red, euglenophytes, green and other algae. Unlike the body of higher plants, they are divided into the above specialized organs (leaf, stem, root). This includes bryophytes, ferns, and angiosperms, within which separate classes are distinguished.

Mushrooms are a kingdom of living nature that combines the characteristics of both animals and plants. Mushrooms, like plants, are immobile; they are characterized by apical growth and the presence of fungi. From animals, fungi inherited a heterotrophic type of metabolism, the formation of urea and other features. Fungi reproduce vegetatively, sexually and asexually. They mineralize plant remains in the soil. Some species can cause diseases in plants and animals. A large number have been found used today to obtain antibiotics, vitamins, and hormones. It's no secret that many mushrooms are edible. Within this kingdom of life there are three types: true fungi, oomycetes and myxomycetes.

Representatives of the animal kingdom are characterized by some general properties with plants, including, for example, metabolism and cellular structure. Such similarities are due to the same origin. However, the main distinguishing feature- nutrition. Animals are heterotrophs, that is, they feed on ready-made organic compounds, due to their inability to synthesize them from inorganic substances. As a rule, animals are actively mobile. According to rough estimates, there are approximately two million species of animals. Like other kingdoms of living nature, animals are divided into subkingdoms, phyla and species. Thus, there are unicellular and multicellular animals, divided into dozens of types and species. People also belong to one of these types.



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