Taxonomy & Phylogeny
The science of classifying organisms
What is taxonomy?
The three domains of life
What are Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya?
The four kingdoms within Domain Eukarya
What are Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia?
To identify organisms based on shape and structure
What are morphological characteristics?
The process where single-stranded DNA from different organisms bind together
What is nucleic acid hybridization?
The study of evolutionary relationships among organisms
What is phylogeny?
The domain that contains organisms with peptidoglycan in their cell walls.
What is Bacteria?
A genetically different population within a clone.
What is a strain?
A staining method used to differentiate bacteria into groups of either + or -
What is Gram staining?
A technique that separates DNA fragments to create a fingerprint.
What is DNA fingerprinting?
Term given to cells that contain no nucleus.
What is a prokaryote?
These organisms have chitin cell walls
What are fungi?
Aquatic organisms, where most are unicellular
What are protozoa?
This term refers to placing an unknown organism to a list of known
What is identification?
Finding out a bacterium produces a certain enzyme is considered this
What is identification?
The two-part naming system for organisms
What is bionomial nomeclature?
This domain is known for living in extreme environments such as high salt concentrations
What is archaea?
These organisms absorb nutrients through their plasma membrane and can be unicellular or multicellular.
What are fungi?
A test that uses antibodies to identify bacteria
What is serolgy?
A technological tool that uses thousands of DNA probes to identify genes
What is a DNA Chip?
This molecule is commonly used to determine evolutionary relationships in microbes.
What is rRNA?
This theory indicates that eukaryotes evolved from prokaryotes
What is the endosymbiotic theory?
These species are thought to have gradually lost their ability to survive independently and could only survive with the help of another cell.
What is a virus?
Tests such as DNAse or Catalase
What are biochemical test?
Can be used to amplify a small amount of microbial DNA
What is Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)?