Carolus Linnaeus

SWEDISH BOTANIST
Carolus Linnaeus, also called Carl Linnaeus, Swedish Carl von Linné,
(born May 23, 1707, Råshult, Småland, Sweden—died January 10, 1778,
Uppsala), Swedish naturalist and explorer who was the first to frame
principles for defining natural genera and species of organisms and to
create a uniform system for naming them (binomial nomenclature).

Carl Linnaeus is famous for his work in Taxonomy, the science of

identifying, naming and classifying organisms (plants, animals, bacteria,
fungi, etc.). He was born in 1707, the eldest of five children, in a place
called Råshult, in Sweden. His father, called Nils, was a minister and
keen gardener. He would often take his young son Carl into the garden
with him and teach him about botany (the study of plants). By the age of five, Carl had his own garden, which
gave him a great thirst for learning about plants and how they work.

Nils taught Carl that every plant had a name. At the time, plant names (which were in Latin, and still are to this
day) were very long and descriptive, and difficult to remember. Nevertheless, Carl dedicated himself to learning
as many as he could. In fact, at school he was often more interested in memorising plant names than in his
school lessons. Due to his interest in plants and science, Carl was encouraged by his tutor, Johan Stensson
Rothman (1684–1763), to study medicine.

In 1728, after spending a year studying medicine at the University of Lund, Carl Linnaeus transferred to
Uppsala University, in the hope that the course would be better. He studied the use of plants, minerals and
animals in medicine. It was here that he came to the attention of Olof Celsius (1670–1756) a theologian
(professor of religious study) and naturalist (studying natural history). Celsius, who was uncle to Anders
Celsius (the inventor of the Celsius thermometer), found Linnaeus studying in the university botanic garden—
and was very surprised to find that the young man knew the names of all the surrounding plants. Linnaeus had
very little money and Celsius offered him a place to live while at university and allowed him to use his library.
During this time, Linnaeus wrote an essay on the classification of plants based on their sexual parts and one
professor, Olof Rudbeck (1660-1740), was so impressed that he asked Linnaeus to become a lecturer in
botany.

The Six Kingdoms

When Linnaeus developed his system of
classification, there were only two
kingdoms, Plants and Animals. But the use
of the microscope led to the discovery of new
organisms and the identification of differences
in cells. A two-kingdom system
was no longer useful.
The Six Kingdoms:
Today the system of classification includes six Plants, Animals, Protists, Fungi,
kingdoms. Archaebacteria, Eubacteria.
How are organism placed into
their kingdoms?
 Cell type, complex or simple
 Their ability to make food
 The number of cells in their
body
Plants In addition plants
You are probably quite familiar with the
members of this kingdom as it contains all the are autotrophs,organisms
plants that you have come to know - flowering that make their own food.
plants, mosses, and ferns. Plants are
all multicellular and consist of complex cells.

With over 250,000 species, the plant kingdom
is the second largest kingdom. Plant species
range from the tiny green mosses
to giant trees.
Without plants, life on Earth
would not exist! Plants feed
almost all the heterotrophs
(organisms that eat other
organisms) on Earth. Wow!

Animals
The animal kingdom is the largest kingdom
with over 1 million known species.

All animals consist of many

complex cells. They are
also heterotrophs.
Sumatran Tiger - Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum,
Chordata, Class Mammalia, Order Carnivora, Family
Members of the animal kingdom
Felidae, Genus Pathera, Species tigris
 are found in the most diverse
environments in the world.
Archaebacteria
In 1983, scientists tool samples from a spot
deep in the Pacific Ocean where hot gases and
molten rock boiled into the ocean form the
Earth’s interior. To their surprise they
discovered unicellular (one cell) organisms in
the samples. These organisms are today
classified in the kingdom, Archaebacteria.
Finding Archaebacteria: The hot
springs of Yellowstone National Park, USA,
were among the first places Archaebacteria
were discovered. The biologists pictured above
are immersing microscope slides in the boiling
pool onto which some archaebacteria might be
captured for study.

Archaebacteria are found in extreme environments such

as hot boiling waterand thermal vents under conditions
with no oxygen or highly acid environments.

Eubacteria
Like archaebacteria, eubacteria are complex
and single celled. Most bacteria are in
the EUBACTERIA kingdom. They are the
kinds found everywhere and are the ones
people are most familiar with.

Eubacteria are classified in their own kingdom Most eubacteria are helpful. Some
because their chemical makeup is different. produce vitamins and foods like
yogurt. However, these eubacteria,
Streptococci pictured above, can give
you strep throat!
Fungi
Mushrooms, mold and mildew are all
examples of organisms in the kingdom fungi.

Most fungi are multicellular and consists of

many complex cells.

Fun Facts about Fungi

Fungi are organisms that

biologists once confused with
plants, however, unlike plants,
fungi cannot make their own
food. Most obtain their food from
parts of plants that are decaying in
Some fungi taste great and others can kill you! the soil.

Protists
Slime molds and algae are protists.
Sometimes they are called the odds and ends
kingdom because its members are so different
from one another. Protists include all
microscopic organisms that
are not bacteria, notanimals, not plants
and not fungi.

Most protists are unicellular. You may be

wondering why those protists are not classified
in the Archaebacteria or Eubacteria
kingdoms.

It is because, unlike bacteria, protists are

complex cells.
These delicate looking diatoms are
classified in the protist kingdom.
 Biodiversity, a portmanteau of "bio" (life) and "diversity", generally refers to the variety and variability of life on
Earth. According to the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), biodiversity typically measures variation at
the genetic, the species, and the ecosystem level.[1] Terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near
the equator,[2] which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity.[3] Biodiversity is not
distributed evenly on Earth, and is richest in the tropics. These tropical forest ecosystems cover less than 10 percent
of earth's surface, and contain about 90 percent of the world's species.[4] Marine biodiversity tends to be highest
along coasts in the Western Pacific, where sea surface temperature is highest and in the mid-latitudinal band in all
oceans. There are latitudinal gradients in species diversity.[5] Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots,[6]and
has been increasing through time,[7][8] but will be likely to slow in the future.[9]
Rapid environmental changes typically cause mass extinctions.[10][11][12] More than 99.9 percent of all species that ever
lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species,[13] are estimated to be extinct.[14][15] Estimates on the number of
Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million,[16] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and
over 86 percent have not yet been described.[17] More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species
are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described.[18] The total amount of
related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes.[19] In comparison, the
total mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC (trillion tons of carbon).[20] In July 2016,
scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) of
all organisms living on Earth.[

The binomial system of nomenclature is the formal system by which all living species are
classified (taxonomy)
 It was initially developed by a Swedish botanist named Carolus Linnaeus in 1735
 It is periodically assessed and updated at a series of international congresses which occur every 4
years

The binomial system of nomenclature provides value because:

 It allows for the identification and comparison of organisms based on recognised characteristics
 It allows all organisms to be named according to a globally recognised scheme
 It can show how closely related organisms are, allowing for the prediction of evolutionary links
 It makes it easier to collect, sort and group information about organisms

According to the binomial system of nomenclature, every organism is designated a scientific name
with two parts:
 Genus is written first and is capitalised (e.g. Homo)
 Species follows and is written in lower case (e.g. Homo sapiens)
 Some species may occasionally have a sub-species designation (e.g. Homo sapiens sapiens –
modern man)

Writing conventions:
 When typing the scientific name, it should be presented in italics
 When hand writing the scientific name, it is customary to underline