1. Introduction to Taxonomy
Differential Biology
6th Period
April 11, 2005

2. Taxonomy
Definition:
The discipline of describing and classifying an organism.

3. 7 levels of Taxonomy Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species
Philip
Came
Over
For
Green
Spaghetti

4. 5 Kingdoms
Monera (bacteria)
Protista
Fungi
Plantae
Animalia

5. Cladograms
These are organized according to shared, specialized characteristics.
Example:
In this sense birds are reptiles because the two groups have many similar derived characteristics.

6. Example of a Cladogram
Source:

7. Three Domains
There is much debate about how many domains there should be and what they should include. Science has argued over this for years. For our class we will use the three most commonly accepted domains.

8. Three Domains Con’t
Archaea – bacteria that lives in extreme habitats, possibly from primitive earth.
Eubacteria – All other prokaryotic organisms.
Eukarya – All eukaryotic life.

9. Comparison of Domains Characteristic Eubacteria ArchaeBacteria
Eukaryotes
Nuclear envelope
absent
present
Organelles
Peptidoglycan cell wall
Type of membrane lipids
Unbranched hydrocarbons
Some branched hydrocarbons
Source:

10. Response to chloroamphenicol (antibiotic that inhibits protein
Characteristic
Eubacteria
ArchaeBacteria
Eukaryotes
RNA polymerases
One
several
Initiator amino acid
formyl-methionine
methionine
Introns
Absent
present in some genes
present
Response to chloroamphenicol (antibiotic that inhibits protein
synthesis)
Sensitive
insensitive
Source:

11. A Brief Summary What is taxonomy?
What was the acronym for the 7 levels of taxa?
Who can list the 7 levels?
Why is there such a controversy over the domains?

12. Something To Look Forward To
Tomorrow we are going to begin
working on what is called a dichotomous
key. It’s sort of like creating a map
for identifying organisms.