Vocabulary

Summary

Biology is the study of life. Living things have their own characteristics. These characteristics are growth and development, reproduction, response to the environment, energy processing, regulation and adaptation.

• Reproduction: a living thing that births another living thing of the same kind
• Growth and development: DNA helps organisms grow and develop
• Energy processing: organisms get and use energy
• Adaptation: heritable characteristics that help an organism survive in an environment. These can change over time
• Regulation: organisms regulate their body temperature to maintain a suitable internal environment
• Response to the environment: react to the environment

Life is arranged into three domains. These domains are Domain Bacteria, Domain Archaea and Domain Eukarya. Taxonomy is how these domains are organised into smaller groups. This hierarchy is ordered from largest to smallest as kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, and specks.

Furthermore, the hierarchy of life is the order of how life is organized. It is the biosphere, ecosystem, community, population, organism, organs and organ system, tissue, cell, organelle and molecule.

• Biosphere: place that has life (on Earth)
• Ecosystem: organisms and plants in a specific area
• Community: organisms living in the ecosystem
• Population: same species living in a community
• Organism: a living thing
• Organs and organ systems: an organ is made of two or more tissues put together and an organ system is a group of organs that work
• together in the body to perform a function
• Tissue: two or more similar cells performing the same function
• Cell: basic unit of life
• Organelle: inside the cell’s DNA and it performs a function