1. Living World - part 01 - Basic principles of life




1. Living World - part 01 - Basic principles of life


Basic principles of life :


1. The living being once produced / born has to survive.

For survival, it needs energy and many chemical molecules.
For energy, it has to perform metabolism.
Metabolism is breaking of molecules (catabolism) and making of new molecules (anabolism).2. From birth onwards, organisms show tendency of growth and development. This growth is a well-orchestrated process.

You might have observed sand mounds, boulders grow, etc.
This growth is not from within and hence these are not living beings.3. Growth and development are not the processes which have unlimited time span.

At certain point of time, the molecules, organs, systems begin to loose their effective working and become old.
This is ageing process of the body.4. Life has to continue hence the organism tries to produce a young one like itself.

It is possible due to reproduction (asexual or sexual).
This ensures continuity of race. Mules, sterile worker bees do not reproduce; yet are living. Can we call reproduction as inclusive characteristic of life?5. As the body looses it's capacity to perform metabolism, the organism dies.
6. Any living being responds to thermal, chemical or biological changes in the surrounding.

This is unique property of living beings.
There is immense diversity in living organisms.
Since time immemorial, variety of organisms are living together on earth.
In order to understand the interrelations between living and non-living as well as between two living beings or groups, systematic study of these is essential.
This data is also important for various industries and agriculture.
Intensive laboratory and field studies in order to identify and classify the organisms form strong basis for meaningful use of the collected data.
If we need to study this diversity, certain aids called taxonomical aids can be used.
These includes -
herbaria
botanical gardens
museums
biodiversity parks, etc

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2. Systematics of Living Organisms part 03 - Units of Classification

  2. Systematics of Living Organisms part 03 - Units of Classification Units of Classification : Species : Species is the  principal natural taxonomic unit , ranking below a genus and denoted by  latin binomial  (considered as the basic) unit of classification.  It is a  group of organisms  that can interbreed under natural condition to produce fertile offspring.  It was thought to be an  indivisible, stable and static unit.   However in the modern taxonomy, subdivision of species such as  sub-species, varities and populations  are seen and given more importance. Genus :  Genus is a taxonomic rank or category  larger than species  used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms.  Genus is a  group of species   bearing close resemblance to one another in their morphological characters but they do not interbreed.  e.g.  Tiger, Leopard, Lion  all three belong to sam...
Read more

2. Systematics of Living Organisms - part 04 - Nomenclature

  2. Systematics of Living Organisms - part 04 - Nomenclature Nomenclature : The art of naming the objects is in fact, a science called  nomenclature.  All living organisms are known by a particular name. 1.Vernacular / Local names / Common names:  Widely distributed organisms have a large number of common names.  Pansy (Viola  tricolor  L.)  grown in most European and American gardens has about 50 common English names.  In a multilingual country like India, almost all useful plants have local names which differ from language to language and even from dialect to dialect.  As in Ayurveda,  mango (Mangifera  indica  L.)  is known by over 50 different names, all in the Sanskrit language. Hence the common names obviously have limited usage and for universal applications, a unique name for a particular individual is very much essential. 2. Scientific Names :  To overcome the difficulties raised by common names, scient...
Read more

2. Systematics of Living Organisms - part 05 -Salient features of Five Kingdoms

Image
  2. Systematics of Living Organisms - part 05 -Salient features of Five Kingdoms  Salient features of Five Kingdoms : 1. Kingdom Monera : It contains unicellular organisms with prokaryotic cellular organization.  Monera includes  unicellular prokaryotic organisms. These are omnipresent.  They are found in all types of environment which are not generally inhabited by other living beings.  Few are  photoautotrophs or chemoautotrophs ; but  majority are heterotrophic  in nature.  These organisms do  not have well defined nucleus . DNA exists as a simple double stranded circular single chromosome called as  nucleoid. Smaller circular molecules of DNA as extrachromosomal genetic elements called  plasmids  are often present.  Cell wall is made up of  peptidoglycan  (also called  murein ) which is a polymer of sugars and amino acids. Membrane bound organelles e.g.  mitochondria, chloroplast, endopla...
Read more