Five Kingdom Classifications

Biology, as you know, is the study of life, living things, and their relationship to one another and to their environment. This branch of Science has affected almost every aspect of our life. Advances in this area have resulted in such diverse products as vaccines and antibiotics. It has made possible the transplantation of organs and the manipulation of genes. At present biologists are working on such vital aspects as increasing food production, improv.ing environmental quality, finding clues to health and longevity and combating dreaded ailments like heart disease, AIDS and cancer.

Scientists working in this field have also increased our awareness of the complexity of the environment and the delicate balance that exists among all living and nonliving things. In the present unit we examine how living things differ from non-living things; we also examine how living things vary among themselves and discuss the various systems of classification. In the other units of this course, we will focus mainly on diversity of certain groups of animal which are rather lowly organized, called non-chordates.