Classification of Living Things N OTES 1. Taxonomy defined: The branch of biology that deals with naming and classifying organisms. A. Classification Vocabulary

2. Autotrophe or Producer: an organism that makes its own food using sunlight energy. Its food is glucose! 3. Heterotrophe or Consumer: an organism that cannot make its own food and must eat other organisms in order to get energy.

4. Hosts: organisms that provide a home and/or food for a parasite. 5. Parasite: an organism that survives by living on or in a host organism and causes harm to that organism.

6. Decomposers: organisms that break down dead organisms into simpler substances, thereby returning important materials to the soil and water.

B. Groups or levels for classifying living things: Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus species is a subgroup of

C. Writing the scientific name of a living thing using a word processor: Genus name species name (e.g. Homo sapiens) D. If you write it by hand then underline: Genus name species name (e.g. Homo sapiens)

E. Six Kingdoms of Living Things 1. Archaebacteria: single cell organisms w/o a nucleus that live in extreme environments. 2. Eubacteria: single cell organism w/o a nucleus that live in a variety of environments, but not extreme environments.

3. Protists: single cell organisms w/ a nucleus (e.g. amoeba, paramecium, and diatoms). (NOTE: Bacteria & Protists have both producers and consumer forms.)

4. Fungi: unicellular to multicellular organisms (includes mushrooms, yeasts and molds). These are consumers. 5. Plants: unicellular to multicellular organisms (includes mosses, ferns and seed plants). These are producers.

6. Animals: multicellular organisms (includes those w/ backbones and those w/o). These are consumers.