Monday, 28 September 2015

Diversity in living organisms (class 9 definitions )



Biodiversity , a concise form of biological diversity coined by Walter .G. Rosen refers to occurrence of diverse forms of living beings which differ from each other in external appearance, size, color pattern ,nutrition, behavior and habitat.
There is 1.7 - 1.8 million organisms on earth.
Taxonomy is a biological science which deals with identification, nomenclature and classification of organism following certain rules.
The vernacular names for one organism are different in different countries and not understood. So it is important to have a distinct, specific and universal scientific name.
Binomial nomenclature is the system of giving two names to one organism. The first is the name of the genus to which the organism belongs. It’s like our surname which we share with our family members.
The second name is species name that is possessed by only one kind of organism and it does not share it with any other organism in the genus.
The convention is that the genus name is written first with its initial letter in capital and species name is written after the genus name and its initial letter is always small.
Both are printed in Italics, and if handwritten both are underlined. Eg Rana tigrina
Both names are Latin names or have Latin endings.
This system of giving two names to an organism is known as binomial nomenclature and was developed by Linnaeus in his book Species Plantarium. So Linnaeus is also called Father of Taxonomy.
Classification is the method of arranging organisms into a hierarchy of closely related groups on the basis of similarities and differences.
Importance of classification:
1.       It makes the study of organism easy.
2.       It helps us to identify the organism.
3.       It gives relationship between two groups of organisms.
4.       It helps in finding complexity and evolution of various organisms.




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