Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The idea of a tree of life arose from ancient notions of a ladder-like progression from lower into higher forms of life (such as in the Great Chain of Being).Early representations of "branching" phylogenetic trees include a "paleontological chart" showing the geological relationships among plants and animals in the book Elementary Geology, by Edward Hitchcock (first edition: 1840).
A life form (also spelled life-form or lifeform) is an entity that is living, [1] [2] such as plants , animals , and fungi . It is estimated that more than 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, [3] are extinct. [4] [5] Earth is the only celestial body known to harbor life forms. No form of ...
The tree of life or universal tree of life is a metaphor, conceptual model, and research tool used to explore the evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct, as described in a famous passage in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). [1]
The cell is the structural and functional unit of life. Smaller organisms, including prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), consist of small single cells. Larger organisms, mainly eukaryotes, can consist of single cells or may be multicellular with more complex structure. Life is only known to exist on Earth but extraterrestrial life is thought ...
In biology, evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organization, from kingdoms to species, and individual organisms and molecules, such as DNA and proteins.
You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work; to remix – to adapt the work; Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.
The kingdom-level classification of life is still widely employed as a useful way of grouping organisms, notwithstanding some problems with this approach: Kingdoms such as Protozoa represent grades rather than clades , and so are rejected by phylogenetic classification systems.
Life is divided into domains, which are subdivided into further groups. Intermediate minor rankings are not shown. In biological taxonomy, a domain (/ d ə ˈ m eɪ n / or / d oʊ ˈ m eɪ n /) (Latin: regio [1]), also dominion, [2] superkingdom, realm, or empire, is the highest taxonomic rank of all organisms taken together.