The 5 Kingdoms of Life

• One of the simplest forms of classification is to split all living things into 5 kingdoms:

  • Animal
  • Plants
  • Fungi
  • Bacteria
  • Protoctist

  Viruses are non-living and therefore classified separately.
• Animals, Plants, Fungi and Protoctists are eukaryotic organisms as their cells all possess a nucleus.

  Bacteria are prokaryotic organisms as their cells don’t have a nucleus.
• Animal kingdom

  • They are multicellular
  • Get their nutrition from feeding on other organisms (heterotrophic)
  • They are mobile (capable of movement from one place to another)
  • They have nervous coordination
  • They have no cell wall or chloroplasts and therefore do not photosynthesise
  • Store carbohydrates as glycogen
  • Eg. sponges, jellyfish, insects, humans

  
• Plant kingdom

  • They are multicellular
  • Cells contain chloroplasts (For photosynthesis to happen plants need light energy which is trapped by chloroplasts which are found in their cells)
  • Carry out photosynthesis and therefore make their own food (autotrophic)
  • Have cellulose cell walls
  • Store sugar as starch or sucrose
  • Eg. herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, seaweed

  
• Fungi kingdom

  • Can be multicellular or unicellular
  • Cell wall made of chitin
  • Made of a network of of fibres called a mycelium of hyphae which have many nuclei 
  • Fungi get the energy they need by digesting other plants and animals. They feed by saprophytic nutrition using extracellular enzymes (outside the cell).
  • Store carbohydrate as glycogen
  • Eg. mould, mushrooms, yeasts, toadstools

  
• Bacteria kingdom

  • Small single celled organisms
  • Cell wall made of peptidoglycan
  • Some have a capsule or slime layer
  • Has no nucleus (prokaryotic)
  • Some species have flagella for movement
  • Some contain plasmids (small loops of DNA)
  • Have one circular chromosome
  • Some can do photosynthesis
  • Eg. E. coli (bacteria that causes food poisoning), MRSA

  
• Protoctist kingdom

  • Unicellular organisms
  • Some are similar to plant cells and some are similar to animal cells
  • Protoctist cells do contain a nucleus (Have a very simple cell structure and are different to bacteria cells as they do contain a nucleus)
  • Eg. amoeba, paramecium

  
• Identify the parts of microscope.

  1] Eyepiece 2] Coarse focus 3] Fine focuse 4] Light 5] Objective lens 6] Stage 7] Slide

  
• How to calculate magnification of a microscope?

  Magnification = image size / actual size