BIOLOGY

1. Ernst Mayr, the Harvard University evolutionary biologist is called as ‘The Darwin of the 20 th
century’.
2. Ernst Mayr pioneered the currently accepted definition of a biological species.
3. Mayr was awarded the three prizes :1) The Balzan Prize in 1983
2) The International prize for Biology in 1994 3) The
Crafoord Prize in 1999
4. Mayr died at the age of 100 in the year 2004.

CHAPTER 1
• All living organisms grow. Increase in mass and increase in number of individuals
are twin characteristics of growth.
• Unicellular organisms grow by cell division.
• Increase in body mass is considered as growth.
• Growth, cannot be taken as a defining property of living organisms.
• There are many organisms which do not reproduce (mules, sterile worker bees,
infertile human couples, etc.). Hence, reproduction also cannot be an all-
inclusive defining characteristic of living organisms.
• All living organisms are made of chemicals.
• These chemicals, small and big, belonging to various classes, sizes, functions,
etc., are constantly being made and changed into some other biomolecules.
These conversions are chemical reactions or metabolic reactions.
• The sum total of all the chemical reactions occurring in our body is metabolism.
• No non-living object exhibits metabolism.
• Hence, cellular organization of the body is the defining feature of life forms.
• All organisms, from the prokaryotes to the most complex eukaryotes can sense
and respond to environmental cues.
• Human being is the only organism who is aware of himself, i.e., has self-
consciousness. Consciousness therefore, becomes the defining property of
living organisms.
• living organisms are self-replicating, evolving, and self-regulating interactive
systems capable of responding to external stimuli.
• Biology is the story of life on earth.
• The number of species that are known and described range between 1.7-1.8
million. This refers to biodiversity or the number and types of organisms present
on earth.
• There is a need to standardize the naming of living organisms such that a
particular organism is known by the same name all over the world. This process
is called nomenclature.
• universal rules of nomenclature:
1) Biological names are generally in Latin and written in italics. They are
Latinized or derived from Latin irrespective of their origin.
2) The first word in a biological name represents the genus while the second
component denotes the specific epithet.
3) Both the words in a biological name, when handwritten, are separately
underlined, or printed in italics to indicate their Latin origin.
4) The first word denoting the genus starts with a capital letter while the specific
epithet starts with a small letter. It can be illustrated with the example of
Mangifera indica.
• For plants, scientific names are based on agreed principles and criteria, which
are provided in International Code for Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN).
• The scientific names ensure that each organism has only one name.
• 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 being
practiced by biologists all over the world.
• The scientific name of mango is written as Mangifera indica.
• 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, e.g., Mangifera indica
Linn. It indicates that this species was first described by Linnaeus.
• Since it is nearly impossible to study all the living organisms, it is necessary to
devise some means to make this possible. This process is classification.
• The scientific term for these categories is taxa.
• based on characteristics, all living organisms can be classified into different taxa.
This process of classification is taxonomy.
• characterization, identification, classification and nomenclature are the
processes that are basic to taxonomy.
• the earliest classifications were based on the ‘uses’ of various organisms.
• Human beings were, since long, not only interested in knowing more about
different kinds of organisms and their diversities, but also the relationships
among them. This branch of study was referred to as systematics.
• Linnaeus used Systema Naturae as the title of his publication.
• Classification is not a single step process but 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. Each category, referred to as a unit
of classification, in fact, represents a rank and is commonly termed as taxon (pl.:
taxa).
• Taxonomical studies of all known organisms have led to the development of
common categories such as kingdom, phylum or division for plants), class, order,
family, genus and species.
COMMON NAMES SCIENTIFIC NAMES
1) Mango a) Mangifera indica.
2) Potato b) Solanum tuberosum.
3) Lion c) Panthera leo.
4) Tiger d) Panthera tigris.
• Taxonomic studies consider a group of individual organisms with fundamental
similarities as a species.
• Genus comprises a group of related species which has more characters in
common in comparison to species of other genera.
• The next category, Family, has a group of related genera with still a smaller
number of similarities as compared to genus and species.
• Families are characterized on the basis of both vegetative and reproductive
features of plant species.
• Among plants for example, three different genera Solanum, Petunia and Datura
are placed in the family Solanaceae.
• Among animals for example, genus Panthera, comprising lion, tiger, leopard is
put along with genus, Felis (cats) in the family Felidae.
• Dogs belong to family Canidae.
• Generally, order and other higher taxonomic categories are identified based on
the aggregates of characters. Order being a higher category, is the assemblage of
families which exhibit a few similar characters.
• Plant families like Convolvulaceae, Solanaceae are included in the order
Polymoniales mainly based on the floral characters.
• The animal order, Carnivora, includes families like Felidae and Canidae.
• Class includes related orders.
• For example, order Primata comprising monkey, gorilla and gibbon is placed in
class Mammalia along with order Carnivora that includes animals like tiger, cat
and dog. Class Mammalia has other orders also.
• Classes comprising animals like fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds along with
mammals constitute the next higher category called Phylum.
• All animals belonging to various phyla are assigned to the highest category called
Kingdom Animalia in the classification system of animals.
• The Kingdom Plantae, on the other hand, is distinct, and comprises all plants
from various divisions.
• Taxonomic studies of various species of plants, animals and other organisms are
useful in agriculture, forestry, industry and in general in knowing our bio-
resources and their diversity.
• Herbarium is a store house of collected plant specimens that are dried, pressed
and preserved on sheets.
• Botanical Gardens have collections of living plants for reference. Plant species in
these gardens are grown for identification purposes and each plant is labelled
indicating its botanical/scientific name and its family. The famous botanical
gardens are at Kew (England), Indian Botanical Garden, Howrah (India) and at
National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow (India).
• Museums have collections of preserved plant and animal specimens for study
and reference.
• Specimens are preserved in the containers or jars in preservative solutions. Plant
and animal specimens may also be preserved as dry specimens.
• Insects are preserved in insect boxes after collecting, killing and pinning.
• Larger animals like birds and mammals are usually stuffed and preserved.
• Museums often have collections of skeletons of animals too.
• Zoological Parks, these are the places where wild animals are kept in protected
environments under human care and which enable us to learn about their food
habits and behavior.
• Key is another taxonomical aid used for identification of plants and animals
based on the similarities and dissimilarities. The keys are based on the
contrasting characters generally in a pair called couplet.
• Each statement in the key is called a lead.
• Separate taxonomic keys are required for each taxonomic category such as
family, genus and species for identification purposes.
• Keys are generally analytical in nature.
• Flora, manuals, monographs and catalogues are some other means of recording
descriptions.
• Monographs contain information on any one taxon.