Biology and its Major Fields

BIOLOGY AND ITS MAJOR FIELDS:

Biology is a natural science, which deals with the study of living organisms. The living organisms have many forms. Some are single cellular prokaryotic and others are multicellular eukaryotic organisms. Biology covers all.

In early days life living organisms were divided into two forms i.e. Plants and Animals. Hence, in early days biology had only two branches (1) Botany: dealing with plants and (2) Zoology: dealing with animals.

Later on, as the scientific knowledge increased, living organisms were divided into 5 kingdoms, which are as under

1. KINGDOM MONERA:In this kingdom, only those organisms are included which are made up of single cell and their cell is prokaryotic in nature (cell without nucleus). In this kingdom, the main examples are bacteria, and cynobacteria.

              

2.KINGDOM PROTISTA: In this kingdom, those plant and animal organisms are included which are made up of single cell and their cell is eukaryotic in nature (cell with nucleus). In this kingdom the example from plant side is Euglena and from animals side Paramecium etc.

3. KINGDOM FUNGI: Fungi is a very large kingdom of single and multicellular eukaryotic organisms. In this kingdom, the organisms which are included are non-chlorophyllus, have a cell wall different than plants and have multi-nucleated cells (coenocytic). In previous time, fungi were classified with plants, but later on it was realized that fungi are altogether different organisms, hence a new kingdom was established for them. The main examples for fungi are multi-cellular Mush rooms (Biologically named as Agaracus) and single cellular yeas fungi, which are used in making backing powder.

4. KINGDOM PLANTAE: In this kingdom all multi-cellular eukaryotic plants are included. They contain cell wall, chlorophyll, and are autotrophs in nature. 

5. KINGDOM ANIMALIA: All multicellular eukaryotic animals are included in this kingdom. Animals do not have cell wall and chlorophyll and are heterotrophs in nature.