Classification and Diversity

• What is a species?


  Members of the same population can breed and produce living, fertile offspring.
• What is courting behavior?

  Behavior to attract a mate.

  Behavior of members of the same species is more similar than that of a different species.
• How does courtship behavior allow successful mating?


  Identifying mates that are capable of breeding,

  Recognize members of the same species,

  forming a pair bond,

  Synchronizing mating,

  Making individuals able to breed.
• What are the 2 types of classification?

  Artificial and Phylogenic
• What is artificial classification?


  Classification based on differences useful at the time. e.g colour, size and number of legs
• What is phylogenic classification?


  classification based on evolutionary relationships between organisms which puts species into groups based on shared features derived from ancestors.
• What is classification?


  Arranging groups into a hierarchy, in which groups are contained within larger groups with no overlap.
• What is the order of classification?

  Domain,

  Kingdom,

  Phylum,

  Class,

  Order,

  Family,

  Genus,

  Species
• What is The Binomial System?


  Devised by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus,

  A universal system based on Latin and Greek names,

  Names are printed in italics or underlined if hand written,

  First name is Genus - starting with a capital and Second name is Species (in lowercase)
• What is a Taxon?


  A group within a phylogenic biological classification.
• What is a Taxonomy?


  A study of theses groups(taxon) and their positions in the hierarchy.
• What is a Domain?

  Made up of Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya
• Who devised Domains?

  Carl Wrose
• What is the Bacteria Domain?

  Single celled prokaryotes, that don`t have any membrane bound organelles.

  They are unicellular and have smaller ribosomes.
• What is the Archaea Domain?

  Single celled prokaryotes that resemble bacteria.
• How is the Archaea Domain different from Bacteria?

  The genes and proteins are more similar to eukaryotes and the membranes contain fatty acid chains attached to glycerol by ester linkages.
• What is the Eukarya Domain?

  Made up of one or more eukaryotic cells,

  Have membrane bound organelles e.g mitochondria and chloroplasts.

  Membranes contain fatty acid chains attached to glycerol by ester linkages.

  Not all have a cell wall.
• What is Phylogeny?

  The evolutionary relationship between organisms.
• How are phylogenetic trees layed out?

  The oldest species are at the base of a tree, most recent ones are at the ends of branches.
• What is Biodiversity?

  The variety of organisms or species in the living world.
• What are the 3 components of Biodiversity?

  Species, genetic and ecosystem
• What is a species?(biodiversity)

  The number of different species and the number of individuals of each species in a community.

  e.g a woodland could contain many different species of plants, insects, birds and mammals.
• What is Genetic?(biodiversity)

  Variety of genes in the population of a species.

  e.g Human blood type is determined by a gene with 3 different alleles.
• What is ecosystem? (biodiversity)

  Range of different habitats.

  e.g A coastal area contains many different habitats- beaches, sand dunes. mudflats and saltmarshes
• What is Species Richness?

  The number of different species in a particular area at a given time.
• How do you work out Species Richness using the Index of Diversity?

  d=N(N-1)/the sum of n(n-1)

  d= index of diversity

  N= the total number of organisms of all species

  n= the total number of organisms of each species
• Comparing DNA sequences:

  1. We can compare the genetic diversity of a species by sampling the the DNA and sequencing it to produce a pattern of coloured bands.
  2. We can compare 2 individuals of the same species to see how diverse they are.
  3. Closely related species have more similarity in their DNA base sequences.
• Comparing mRNA sequences:

  1. mRNA is coded by DNA<
  2. So it is complementary to the DNA Strand,
  3. We can therefore measure genetic diversity using the mRNA sequence instead,
  4. A similar sequencing of mRNA will mean the species are closely related/share a common ancestor.
• Comparing Amino Acid sequences:

  1. We can compare the amino acid sequence of their proteins and once the amino acid sequence for a chosen protein has been determined for 2 species:
  2. we can count the number of similarities and differences in each sequence.