Plants, Animals and the Borderline Forms

Name: Plants, Animals and the Borderline Forms
Author: StemPy Lab

The two big kingdoms are the ones you know best. In this course we state what makes a plant a plant and an animal an animal. Then we go to the edge of life: the viruses, which can be crystallised like a salt, the viroids, the prions, and the lichens, in which an alga and a fungus live as one body.

3 lessons, about 1 h 15 min3 simulations12 problems6 practice questionsPython in every lesson

Created by StemPy Lab

Course outline (3 lessons)

Lesson 1about 25 min
Kingdom Plantae and Kingdom Animalia
Kingdom Plantae holds the eukaryotic organisms with chlorophyll: algae, bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Their cell wall is of cellulose, they are mostly autotrophic, and their life cycle has a diploid sporophyte and a haploid gametophyte (alternation of generations). Kingdom Animalia holds the multicellular heterotrophic eukaryotes with no cell wall, with holozoic nutrition, and mostly sexual reproduction.
1 simulation2 practice questions1 Python program4 problems
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Lesson 2about 25 min
Viruses, viroids and prions
Whittaker's system does not include viruses, viroids and prions. Viruses are obligate parasites with a nucleic acid (DNA or RNA, never both) in a protein coat, the capsid. They can be crystallised and are inert outside a host cell. Ivanowsky (1892), Beijerinck (1898) and Stanley (1935) found them. Viroids, found by Diener in 1971, are free RNA with no protein coat. Prions are abnormally folded proteins that cause BSE and CJD.
1 simulation2 practice questions1 Python program5 problems1 Python lab1 note
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Lesson 3about 25 min
Lichens and the limits of the five kingdoms
A lichen is a symbiotic association of an alga (the phycobiont) and a fungus (the mycobiont). The alga makes food, and the fungus gives shelter and takes in water and minerals. The two are so close that they cannot be separated in nature. Lichens do not grow in polluted air, so they are good pollution indicators. Whittaker's five kingdoms leave out the viruses, viroids and lichens.
1 simulation2 practice questions1 Python program3 problems1 Python lab1 question set
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Biological Classification: Challenge Paper

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More onDiversity of Living Organisms › Kingdoms Plantae and Animalia Diversity of Living Organisms › Viruses, Viroids and Prions Diversity of Living Organisms › Lichens and Symbiosis

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Plants, Animals and the Borderline Forms

Course outline (3 lessons)

Kingdom Plantae and Kingdom Animalia

Viruses, viroids and prions

Lichens and the limits of the five kingdoms

Test Your Learning

Your teacher

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