Living Systems Study Guide:

1. There are 5 kingdoms of living things. Carolus Linnaeus came up with this system of classification.

1. Monera: one-celled organisms that do not have a nucleus and do have a cell wall.
2. Protista: one-celled organisms that have a nucleus and do not have a cell wall.
3. Fungi: one-celled or multi-celled organisms without chlorophyll. They absorb their food.
4. Plantae: Plants can be divided into two groups:

1. Vascular Plants: Plants which have special tissues to transport food and water such as trees and flowers.

2. Non-Vascular Plants: Plants which do not have tissues to transport food and water such as moss.

5. Animalia: Animals can be divided into 2 groups:

1. Vertebrates: animals with a backbone. The backbone supports the animal’s body. Examples of animals with backbones include humans, cats, gerbils, elephants, fish, frogs, turtles, lizards, snakes, and birds.

2. Invertebrates: Animals without a backbone. Some invertebrates have internal structures to support their bodies: others have hard outer-body supports. Examples include worms, ants, sponges, lobsters, clams, oysters, octopi, spiders, and centipedes.

2. All energy comes from the sun.
3. Producers: Plants that capture the sun’s energy
4. Consumers: Animals that cannot capture the sun’s energy. There are 3 kinds of consumers:
1. Herbivores: Only eat plants (cows, deer)
2. Carnivores: Eat only animals (lions, owls)
3. Omnivores: Eat both plants and animals (bears, humans)
5. Decomposers: Break down dead animals and plants so as to return the nutrients back to the soil (bacteria, mushrooms, ants).
6. Habitat: Environment that an organism lives.
7. Niche: the role an organisms plays in its environment
8. All living organisms grow, reproduce, and react to their environment.
9. Structural adaptations: Physical features that allow an organism to survive. A duck’s structural adaptations are that it has webbed feet that allow it to swim and a woodpecker has a pointed beak so that it can pick insects from trees.
10. There are 3 main types of structural adaptations:
1. Camouflage: The animal looks like its surrounding (Chameleon)
2. Mimicry: The animal looks like another animal that the predators despise (A viceroy butterfly looks like a monarch butterfly).
3. Counter shading: The top and bottom of an animal are different colors so it blends in with its surrounding (Birds and fish).
11. Behavioral adaptation: The animal performs an action or activity to survive. For instance, a raccoon acting as if it is dead in order to protect itself.
12. There are 5 main behavioral adaptations:
1. Inborn (innate) behavior: Animals are born knowing how to behave
2. Instict: The animal’s does an action because of inborn knowledge such as migrating.
3. Reflex: Inborn behavior such as blinking when you have something in your eye or pulling your hand away from a fire.
4. Learned Behavior: These are behaviors that have to be learnt. A dog learns to fetch a stick.
5. Social Behavior: Animals learn from each other as they interact such as lions hunting togher.

Plants:

1. Leaves help plants capture light
2. The leaves of a plant are usually attached to the stem. The stem hold up its leaves. Water travels up a plant’s stem to its leaves.
3. The roots of a plant are usually under the soil. They hold the plant in the soil and soak up water and nutrients the plant needs.
4. The flower makes seed for a plant and contains its reproductive parts. Petals are usually a bright color so that they attract insects.
5. The stamen is the stem-like male reproductive part of a plant, found in the flower. It has a rounded tip that produces pollen. Pollen are tiny male reproductive cells of a flower.
6. The pistil is the stem-like female reproductive part of the flower. It has a sticky tip and bottom contains the ovary.
7. Pollination is the process of pollen reaching the pistil of the flower. The wind and insects carry pollen from one flower to another.
8. A sepal is the green leaf-like plant structure covering and protecting the flower buds.
9. A seed is a tiny young plant and its stored food.
10. An embryo is the tiny young plant growing from the seed.
11. A spore is a reproductive cell of fungi, mosses, and ferns.
12. Chlorophyll is the green material a plant must have to make food through photosynthesis.
13. Carbon Dioxide is a gas composed of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms. This gas is used by plants in the process of photosynthesis. Humans take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide while plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
14. Dormancy is a condition in which a seed or plant remains inactive for a period of time in response to stressful or unfavorable conditions (winter). This is a plant’s way of “hibernating.”
15. Green plants make their own food. They have special factories called chloroplasts. The chloroplasts contain a substance called chlorophyll. Together with the sun, carbon dioxide, water, and minerals, chlorophyll helps a plant make its food.

Picture Credit: http://www.naturegrid.org.uk/qca/graphics/flowerlabel.gif