NEET Revision Notes

Biology
Biological Classification

Introduction:

● Classification is a very important aspect of Biology.

● It has greatly eased the study of various organisms and their evolution.
● All living organisms are widely classified into kingdoms based on their
particular characteristics.
● The process of grouping various organisms according to their similarities,
dissimilarities, and phylogenetic descent is known as biological classification.
● There have been various attempts to classify organisms. The earliest was by
Aristotle, who classified plants into herbs, shrubs, and trees. He classified
animals into two groups, based on the presence and absence of red blood cells.
● Linnaeus gave the Two Kingdom system of classification and divided living
organisms into two kingdoms Plantae and Animalia.
● R.H. Whittaker proposed the Five Kingdom system of classification and
classified organisms, based on cellular structure, complexity, mode of
nutrition, phylogenetic relationship, and ecological role performed by them.
● Whittaker divided organisms into Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and
Animalia.

Five Kingdom Classification by Whittaker

Attributes Monera Protista Fungi Plantae Animalia
Cell type Prokaryotic Eukaryotic Eukaryotic Eukaryotic Eukaryotic
Polysaccha
May be
Cell wall ride + Chitin Cellulose Absent
present
amino acid
Organ Unicellula Multicellul Multicellu Multicellul
unicellular
complexity r ar lar ar
Heterotrop Heterotrop
Mode of Chemosynt Autotrophi Autotrophi
hic hic
Nutrition hetic c/ c
Absorption Holozoic

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 1

 Autotrophi heterotrop
c/ hic
heterotroph
ic

Kingdom Monera

● The Monera Kingdom is entirely made up of bacteria.

● They are the most common microorganisms.
● Bacteria can be found almost everywhere.
● Hundreds of microorganisms can be found in a single sample of soil.
● They can also be found in severe habitats such as hot springs, deserts, snow,
and deep oceans, where few other animals can survive.
● Many of them live in or on other species as parasites.
● Bacteria are divided into four types based on their shape: spherical Coccus
(pl. cocci), rod-shaped Bacillus (pl. bacilli), comma-shaped Vibrium (pl.
vibrio), and spiral Spirillum (pl. spirillum) (pl.: spirilla)
● Bacteria have a simple structure, yet their behaviour is very complex.
● Bacteria have the most metabolic diversity compared to other organisms.
● Some bacteria are autotrophic, which means they feed themselves from
inorganic sources.
● Autotrophs can be either photosynthetic or chemosynthetic.
● The bulk of bacteria are heterotrophs, which means they devour dead organic
stuff or other bacteria.

Image: Shapes of Bacteria

Archaebacteria

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 2

 ● These bacteria are one of a kind because they can thrive in extremely saline
conditions (halophiles), hot springs (thermoacidophiles), and marshy habitats
(thermoacidophiles) (methanogens).
● Archaebacteria are distinguished from other bacteria by their unique cell wall
structure, which allows them to thrive in severe settings.

Eubacteria

● There are thousands of different types of eubacteria, or "true bacteria."

● They are distinguished by the presence of a rigid cell wall and, if motile, a
flagellum.
● Photosynthetic autotrophs having chlorophyll akin to green plants,
cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) are photosynthetic autotrophs.
● Cyanobacteria are unicellular, colonial, or filamentous algae that can be found
in freshwater, seawater, or on land.
● In most cases, the colonies are surrounded by a gelatinous layer.
● In contaminated water sources, blooms are common. Some of these species,
such as Nostoc and Anabaena, have specialised cells called heterocysts that
can fix atmospheric nitrogen.
● Chemosynthetic autotrophic bacteria make ATP from the energy released
when inorganic chemicals such as nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia are oxidised.
● They play an important role in the recycling of nutrients like nitrogen,
phosphorus, iron, and sulphur.
● Heterotrophic bacteria are the most common in nature.
● The vast majority of them are active decomposers.
● Many of them have a significant impact on human affairs.
● Mycoplasma is an organism that is completely devoid of a cell wall. They are
the tiniest living cells on the planet, capable of thriving in the absence of
oxygen.
● In animals and plants, many mycoplasmas are pathogenic.

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 3

Image: Archaebacteria and Eubacteria

Kingdom Protista

● This category includes unicellular eukaryotes.

● Photosynthetic protists connect plants and animals.
● They have their nucleus and other membrane-bound cell organelles.
● Among them are protozoa, slime moulds, chrysophytes, dinoflagellates,
and euglenoids.

Chrysophytes

● Desmids and diatoms should both be included (golden algae)

● Oceans contain a significant amount of diatoms. They do photosynthesis
and consume CO2 in the waters when they have access to enough nutrients.
They are the chief producers and provide food for many marine species.
● They are mostly photosynthetic and have indestructible cell walls due to
the presence of silica.
● The cell wall divides into two thin overlapping shells that fit together like
a soapbox on the exterior surface.
● The accumulated deposit of the cell wall is diatomaceous earth. Filtering
and polishing are two of its functions.

Dinoflagellates

● They are photosynthetic and saltwater organisms.

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 4

 ● On the cell wall were stiff cellulose plates that came in a variety of colours,
including yellow, green, red, blue, and brown, depending on the pigment
present.
● They multiply rapidly, resulting in a red tide (gonyaulax).
● Many dinoflagellates emit a blue-green light that is bioluminescent.

Euglenoids

● They're photosynthetic protists with flagellated flagella.

● Euglena connects animal and plant kingdoms. They have no cell wall and can
photosynthesize.
● A unique trait is the presence of pellicle, a protein-rich covering that allows
them to bend their bodies.
● In the absence of sunlight, they are heterotrophic, feeding on small organisms.

Slime molds

● They are saprophytic protists, meaning they eat organic matter like rotting
twigs and leaves.
● In unfavourable conditions, fruiting structures carrying spores grow at the
plasmodium's apex.
● These spores have cellulose cell walls and can survive in harsh conditions for
lengthy periods of time.

Protozoans

All unicellular, eukaryotic, heterotrophic parasites and predators belong to this

group.
These are classified into four categories:
Characters Amoeboid Flagellated Ciliated Sporozoan

Habit and Freshwater, Aquatic. Freshwater All of them

Habitat seawater and Free-living and marine. are
moist soil. and parasitic. Few of them endoparasites
Most are are parasitic.

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 5

 parasitic but
some are free
living.

Locomotory Pseudopodia Flagella Cilia Absent

organs (false feet)

Special In marine Rarely sexual An infectious

features forms silica reproduction is spore-forming
shells are seen, stage is
present. present in the
life cycle.

Examples Amoeba, Trypanosoma Paramecium Plasmodium

Entamoeba (cause (causes
sleeping malaria)
sickness)

Kingdom Fungi

● Fungi are cosmopolitan i.e. can be found everywhere.

● They are heterotrophic, which means they take up nutrients from other
organisms.
● Their cell wall is made out of chitin or fungal cellulose.
● Glycogen is their primary food in reserved form, and they eat saprophytically,
parasitically, or symbiotically.
● Vegetative reproduction involves fragmentation, budding, and fission.
● Asexual reproductive spores include conidia, zoospores, and sporangiospores.
● Sexual reproduction is accomplished through the growth and development of
oospores, ascospores, and basidiospores in different fruiting structures.
● In sexual reproduction, plasmogamy (protoplasm fusion) is followed by
karyogamy (fusion of nuclei).
● In basidiomycetes and ascomycetes, plasmogamy is not immediately followed
by karyogamy, resulting in a separate dikaryon (n+n) cell with two nuclei per
cell.

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 6

 ● Fungi are divided into four classes based on the types of fungi and how they
reproduce.
Attributes Fungi
Class Phycomycetes Ascomycetes Basidiomycetes Deuteromycetes
Moist damp Found in soil, Saprophytes,
Saprophytic,
areas or an logs, or as a parasites, or
Habit and coprophilous,
obligate parasite in plant decomposers help
habitat parasite, and
parasite on bodies causing in mineral
decomposers
plants rust and smuts recycling
Structure of Aseptate, coen
Branched, septate Branched, septate Branched, septate
mycelium ocytic
Vegetative
Zoospores
Asexual Conidia (formed reproduction is by
(motile)
Reproducti exogenously in fragmentation, conidia
Aplanospores
on conidiophores) with no asexual
(non-motile)
spore formation
No sexual organs,
basidiospores are
Isogamous, Ascospores In imperfect
Sexual formed in the
anisogamous (formed fungi, sexual
Reproducti basidium
or oogamous endogenously in reproduction is
on Karyogamy after
Zygospores ascii) not found
the dikaryon
phase
Commonly
Commonly known
known as
as sac-fungi.
mushrooms,
Mucor, Penicillium, Trichoderma,
bracket fungi, or
Examples Rhizopus, Aspergillus, Colletotrichum,
puffballs
Albugo Neurospora, Alternaria
Agaricus,
Claviceps,
Ustilago,
Yeast (unicellular)
Puccinia

Phycomycetes

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 7

Phycomycetes can be found in aquatic areas and on decaying wood in moist and
humid environments, as well as obligate parasites on plants. The mycelium is
coenocytic and aseptate. Asexual reproduction occurs via zoospores (motile) or
aplanospores (asexual) (non-motile).

Ascomycetes

Ascomycetes, sometimes known as sac-fungi, are typically multicellular, such as

Penicillium, or occasionally unicellular, such as yeast (Saccharomyces).
Saprophytes, decomposers, parasitic, or coprophilous (growing on dung). Mycelium
is septate and branching.

Basidiomycetes

Mushrooms, bracket fungi, and puffballs are examples of basidiomycetes. They live
as parasitic rusts and smuts in soil, on logs and tree stumps, and in living plant bodies
as parasites. The mycelium is septate and branching. Asexual spores are rarely
observed, whereas vegetative reproduction through fragmentation is common.

Deuteromycetes

Because only the asexual or vegetative phases of such fungi are known, they are
commonly referred to as imperfect fungi. When the sexual forms of this fungus were
discovered, they were placed in the appropriate groups.

Kingdom Plantae

● Plants are eukaryotic chlorophyll-containing creatures that belong to the

kingdom Plantae.
● The cell wall of Plants is made of cellulose.
● Insectivorous plants such as bladderwort and Venus’s flytrap exist, while
Cuscuta is a parasite.
● Plant cells are eukaryotic in nature, with significant chloroplasts and
cellulose-based cell walls.
● Plants have two unique phases in their life cycle: diploid sporophyte and
haploid gametophyte, which alternate.

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 8

 ● The lengths of the haploid and diploid phases, as well as whether they are
free-living or dependent on others, varied between plant families.
● Alternation of generation is the term for this phenomenon.

Kingdom Animalia

● This kingdom is made up of heterotrophic eukaryotic creatures that are

multicellular and lack cell walls.
● Plants provide food to them directly or indirectly.
● Dietary food is digested in an interior cavity, and food reserves are stored as
glycogen or fat.
● Their nutrition is holozoic, meaning they eat food.
● They have a distinct growth pattern and mature into adults with distinct shapes
and sizes.
● Higher forms have more complex sensory and motor mechanisms.
● The majority of them can move around.
● Male and female copulation is followed by embryological development in
sexual reproduction.

Viruses, viroids, prions and lichens

Viruses

● The pathogenic organism of tobacco mosaic disease was given the label
"virus" by Dmitri Ivanowsky (TMV).
● Beijerinek coined the term "Contagium vivum fluidum" to describe the fluid
recovered from tobacco plants that was infectious to healthy plants.
● For the first time, Stanley crystallised TMV (tobacco mosaic virus).

Image: Tobacco mosaic virus

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 9

 ● They are acellular and contain a nucleic acid core (DNA or RNA) encased in
a protein covering known as the capsid.
● Viruses replicate inside the host cell using the host machinery, but they also
exist outside the host cell in a crystalline form.
● A virus is a nucleoprotein with infectious genetic material. Viruses that infect
plants typically have single-stranded RNA, whereas viruses that infect
animals typically have either double-stranded DNA or single or double-
stranded RNA.

Viroid

● They are the tiniest infectious agents ever discovered. They are nucleic acid-
based but lack a protein covering.
● Diener discovered a viroid that causes spindle tuber disease in potato.

Prions

● They are similar in size to viruses and include improperly folded proteins.
● By transmitting their misfolded proteins, they can affect the form of normal
proteins.
● They produce a variety of neurological disorders in cattle and people,
including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and Cr-Jakob disease.

Lichens

● They are a mutually advantageous symbiotic relationship between algae

(phycobiont) and fungi (mycobiont). The alga produces food and the fungus
provides shelter.
● Because lichens do not develop in contaminated environments, they are an
excellent pollution indicator.

Key Points to Remember

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 10

 ● Aristotle presented the first biological classification of plants and animals
based on simple morphological characteristics.
● Later, Linnaeus divided all living beings into two kingdoms: Plantae and
Animalia.
● Whittaker proposed a five-kingdom classification that includes Monera,
Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia. The five-kingdom classification used
cell structure, mode of nutrition, body organisation, mode of reproduction,
and evolutionary relationships as the primary criteria.
● Bacteria are classified as Kingdom Monera in the five-kingdom classification.
These organisms have the greatest metabolic diversity. Bacteria can feed
either autotrophically or heterotrophically.
● Chrysophytes, Dinoflagellates, Euglenoids, Slime-moulds, and Protozoans
are all members of the kingdom Protista. The nucleus and other membrane-
bound organelles have been defined as protists. They reproduce asexually as
well as sexually.
● Members of the Kingdom Fungi exhibit a wide range of structures and
habitats. Saprophytic nutrition is used by the majority of fungi. They
reproduce both asexually and sexually. This kingdom is divided into four
classes: Phycomycetes, Ascomycetes, Basidiomycetes, and Deuteromycetes.
● All eukaryotic organisms having chlorophyll pigment are classified as
plantae. This group includes algae, bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms,
and angiosperms. Plants have two generations that alternate: gametophytic
and sporophytic generations.
● The Kingdom Animalia includes heterotrophic eukaryotic multicellular
organisms without a cell wall. These organisms feed in a holozoic fashion.
They primarily reproduce sexually.
● Some acellular organisms, such as viruses and viroids, as well as lichens, are
not among the five-kingdom classifications.

Class XI Biology www.vedantu.com 11