1.2 Describe the common features shared by organisms within the following main groups: plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, protoctists and viruses, and for each group describe examples and their features as follows

Kingdoms of life:

- plants

- animals

- fungi

- bacteria

- protoctists

- (viruses)

Plant

-        They are multicellular organisms

-        Their cells contain chloroplasts-  the are able to carry out photosynthesis

-        They have cellulose cell walls

-        Store carbohydrates as starch and sucrose

-        Examples: maize, peas, beans

Animals

-        Multicellular organisms 

-        Have no cell walls or chloroplasts

-        Have nervous coordination and are able to move from one place to another

-        Store carbohydrate as glycogen

-        Examples: mammals, insects

Fungi

-        Can be multicellular or unicellular

-        Usually organised into a mycelium made from thread like structures called hyphae which contain many nuclei

-        Cannot photosynthesize

-        Cell walls are made of chitin

-        All fungi are saprotrophs (decomposers) – they feed using extracellular digestion (it secretes digestive enzymes onto food material and absorb the organic products) (saprotrophic nutrition)

-        Stores carbohydrate as glycogen

-        Examples: mucor and yeast (unicellular)

Bacteria

-        Microscopic unicellular organisms

-        They have a cell wall, cell membrane, cytoplasm and plasmids

-        No nucleus but contain DNA (circular chromosome)

-        Some can carry out photosynthesis but most are saprophytes (feed off other living or dead organisms)

-        Reproduce by binary fission (a type of asexual reproduction: the cells divide)

-        Examples: lacto bacillus, pneumococcus

Protoctists

-        Microscopic unicellular organisms

-        Some have features like an animal cell (amoeba- lives in pond water)

-        Some have chloroplasts like a plant cell (chlorella)

-        Pathogenic example: plasmodium- causes malaria

Viruses

-        Viruses are often not considered part of the 5 kingdoms of life because they lack several properties of living things (no metabolism, don’t grow, not waste products, don’t reproduce: they inject their genes into a host cell)

-        Small particles, smaller than bacteria

-        Parasitic

-        Can only reproduce inside living organisms

-        Wide variety of shapes and sizes

-        No cellular structure but has a protein coat and contains one type of nucleic acid, either DNA or RNA

-        Example: influenza virus, HIV virus