CHAPTER-2

BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION
 Biological System of Classification
Aristotle was the earliest to attempt a more scientific basis for
classification.
Non-motile-Plants:
• morphological characters to classify
plants into trees, shrubs and herbs.

Motile-Animals:
• Classified based on habitat
• those which had red blood and
those that did not.
TWO KINGDOM THREE KINGDOM
FOUR KINGDOM SIX KINGDOM
 Five Kingdom Classification -R.H. Whittaker (1969)-
The kingdoms defined by him were named
1. Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia.
The main criteria for classification include:-
• cell structure,
• thallus organisation,
• mode of nutrition,
•reproduction and
• phylogenetic relationships.
 KINGDOM MONERA
•Bacteria - members of the Kingdom Monera.
•They are the most abundant micro-organisms.
•Bacteria occur almost everywhere and also live in extreme habitats
such as hot springs, deserts, snow and deep oceans .
•Many of them live as parasites
Bacteria are grouped under four categories based on
their shape:
1. Coccus -spherical
2. Bacillus -rod-shaped
3. Vibrium - comma-shaped
4. Spirillum - spiral
 KINGDOM MONERA

ARCHAEBACTERIA

EUBACTERIA

MYCOPLASAM
 ARCHAEBACTERIA
[Link]-Extreme salt area

[Link]-Hot springs

[Link]-marshy area

ARCHAEBACTERIA:
•Live in some of the most harsh habitats
• Archaebacteria in having a different
cell wall help them to survive in extreme
conditions.
• Methanogens are present in the gut
of several ruminant animals which
produce methane (biogas) from the
dung of these animals.
 EUBACTERIA OR ‘TRUE BACTERIA’.
•Presence of a rigid cell wall, and if
motile, a flagellum.
•The cyanobacteria - unicellular, colonial
or filamentous, freshwater/marine or
terrestrial algae.
•The colonies are generally surrounded
by gelatinous sheath. They often form
blooms in polluted water bodies.
•The cyanobacteria or blue-green
algae have chlorophyll a similar to green
plants and are photosynthetic
autotrophs
•They can fix atmospheric nitrogen in
specialised cells called heterocysts,
e.g., Nostoc and Anabaena.
 EUBACTERIA OR ‘TRUE BACTERIA’.

•Chemosynthetic autotrophic bacteria-

• oxidise various inorganic substances such as nitrates, nitrites and
ammonia.
• They play a great role in recycling nutrients like nitrogen,
phosphorous, iron and sulphur.
HETEROTROPHIC BACTERIA-
•Important decomposers.
• They are helpful in making curd
from milk, production of antibiotics,
fixing nitrogen in legume roots, etc.
• Some are pathogens causing
damage to human beings, crops, farm
animals and pets..

•Bacteria reproduce mainly by fission

and produce spores during
unfavorable condition.

• They also reproduce by a sort of

sexual reproduction, conjugation.
 MYCOPLASMA
•Organisms that completely lack a cell wall.
•They are the smallest living cells,PPLO-Pleuro
Pneumonia Like Organism.
•They can survive without oxygen.
•Many mycoplasma are pathogenic in animals and plants.
 KINGDOM PROTISTA
•Members of Protista are primarily aquatic.
•Includes Chrysophytes, Dinoflagellates, Euglenoids,
Slime moulds and Protozoans.
 [Link]
• Includes diatoms and golden algae,
desmids.
•Found in fresh water as well as in marine
environments, are microscopic as
planktons.
• Most of them are photosynthetic.
•Cell walls form two thin overlapping
shells.
• The walls are embedded with silica
• Diatomaceous earth-accumulation of
large amount of cell wall deposits in their
habitat.
• Used in polishing, filtration of oils and
syrups.
• Diatoms are the chief ‘producers’ in the
oceans.
 2. DINOFLAGELLATES
• Mostly marine and photosynthetic.
• Appear yellow, green, brown, blue or red depending
on the main pigments present in their cells.
• The cell wall has stiff cellulose plates on the outer surface.
• Most of them have two flagella; one lies longitudinally and the
other transversely in a furrow between the wall plates.
•Red tide-Very often, red dinoflagellates ,Gonyaulax,
undergo such rapid multiplication that they make the sea appear red .
 [Link]
• Fresh water organisms found in stagnant
water.
•With a protein rich layer called pellicle
which makes their body flexible instead of
cell wall
•They have two flagella, a short and a long
one.
• Generally photosynthetic , when deprived
of sunlight they behave like heterotrophs
• Interestingly, the pigments of euglenoids
are identical to those present in higher
plants. Example: Euglena.
 4. SLIME MOULDS
• Are saprophytic protists.
•The body moves along decaying twigs and leaves engulfing organic
material.
• Plasmodium-an aggregation during during suitable conditions which may
grow and spread over several feet.
•During unfavorable conditions, the plasmodium differentiates and forms
fruiting bodies bearing spores at their tips.
•The spores possess true walls, dispersed by air currents.
 [Link]
• Heterotrophs -live as predators or parasites.
•Believed to be primitive relatives of animals.
• There are four major groups of protozoans.
Amoeboid protozoans: live in fresh water, sea water or moist soil. Move
and capture their prey by pseudopodia Eg.. Amoeba.
•Marine forms have silica shells on their surface. Entamoeba are
parasites.
Flagellated protozoans: either free-living or parasitic. They have
flagella. The parasitic forms cause diaseases such as sleeping sickness.
Example: Trypanosoma.
Ciliated protozoans: aquatic, presence of thousands of cilia.
• With a cavity (gullet) that opens to the outside of the cell surface.
•Movement of rows of cilia causes the water laden with food to be steered
into the gullet. Example: Paramoecium.
Sporozoans: organisms that have an infectious spore-like stage in their life
cycle.
•Plasmodium (malarial parasite) which causes malaria.
 KINGDOM FUNGI
•Kingdom of heterotrophic organisms.
•Unicellular and multicellular.
• Hyphea-long, slender thread-like structures which form bodies of fungi.
•Mycelium-The network of hyphae .
• Some hyphae are continuous tubes filled with multinucleated cytoplasm – these
are called coenocytic hyphae.
•Others have septae or cross walls in their hyphae.
•The cell walls of fungi are composed of chitin and polysaccharides.
•Fungi- saprophytes, parasites,symbionts – in association with algae as lichens
and with roots of higher plants as mycorrhiza.
•Reproduction-by vegetative means – fragmentation, fission
and budding.
• Asexual reproduction – spores like conidia or
sporangiospores or zoospores,
•Sexual reproduction- oospores, ascospores and
basidiospores.
• The sexual cycle involves the following three steps:
(i) Plasmogamy -fusion of protoplasms between two motile
or non-motile gametes
(ii) Karyogamy -Fusion of two nuclei .
(iii) Meiosis in zygote resulting in haploid spores.

•Dikaryon-fungi like ascomycetes and basidiomycetes an

intervening
dikaryotic stage (n + n, i.e., two nuclei per cell) occurs after
fusion.
 PHYCOMYCETES
•They are found in aquatic habitat and on decaying wood in moist and
damp places, as obligate parasites.
•The mycelium is aseptate and coenocytic.
•Asexual reproduction by zoospores( motile) or aplanospores (non-
motile).
•A zygospore is formed by fusion of two gametes.
Example- Mucus, Rhizopus, Albugo etc.
 ASCOMYCETES (THE SAC FUNGI)
• They are saprophytic, decomposers, parasitic or coprophilous
(growing on dung).
•Mostly multicellular or rarely unicellular.
• Mycelium and branched and septate and asexual spores are conidia
on conidiophores
• Sexual spores are called ascospores produced inside the fruiting
body called ascocarps.
Example- Neurospora, Asperigillus, Claviceps etc.
 BASIDIOMYCETES (THE CLUB FUNGI)
•They grow in soil, on logs and tree stumps and in living plant bodies as
parasites, e.g., rusts and smuts
• The mycelium is branched and septate.
• Vegetative reproduction is by fragmentation. Asexual spores are not found.
• Sexual reproduction is by two vegetative or somatic cells forming basidium.
• Basidiospores are produced in basidium by developing a fruiting body called
basidiocarps.
• Example- Agaricus, Ustilago, Puccinia.
 DEUTEROMYCETES ( THE FUNGI IMPERFECT)
• Onlyvegetative and asexual phase is known, hence fungi imperfect
• Mycelium is septate and branched.
• Some members are saprophytes or parasites and mainly
decomposers
• Reproduce only by asexual spores known as conidia.
• Example- Alternaria, Trichoderma, Colletotrichu.
 VIRUS
•[Link]-named virus that means venom or poisonous fluid
• D.J. Ivanowsky (1892) -recognised certain microbes as causal
organism of the mosaic disease of tobacco .
• M.W. Beijerinek (1898)- demonstrated that the extract of the infected
plants of tobacco could cause infection in healthy plants and called the
fluid as Contagium vivum fluidum (infectious living fluid).
•W.M. Stanley(1935)- showed that viruses could be crystallised and crystals consist
largely of proteins. .
 VIRUS
•Viruses are non-cellular organisms having inert crystalline structure outside the
living.
•Viruses are obligate parasites.
•When they enter the living cell, they take over the machinery of living cell to
replicate themselves.
• In addition to proteins, viruses also contain genetic material that could be DNA or
RNA.
•Virus that infect plants have single stranded RNA and virus that infect
animals have either single or double stranded RNA or double stranded DNA.
•Bacterial viruses or Bacteriophage (viruses that infect the bacteria) are
usually double stranded DNA viruses
• Causes diseases like common cold, influenza, AIDS, small pox,
leaf rolling and curling.
 VIRUS
•The protein coat called capsid made of small subunits called capsomeres,
protects the nucleic acid.
•These capsomeres are arranged in helical or polyhedral geometric forms.
 LICHENS
•Lichens are symbiotic association between algae and fungi. The algal
part is called
•Phycobiont and fungal parts are called Mycobiont.
•They are good pollution indicator as they do not grow in polluted area.