Biology

The study of life and the processes thereof. Some general principles as to how living things work are studied in Biochemistry and Genetics. To find out more about specific organisms we investigate their Anatomy, Physiology, and Ontogeny. To find out about how organisms relate we investigate their Ecology.

One of the central concepts in biology is the principle of Evolution. The descent of an organism is called its Phylogeny; these are studied using all sorts of evidence, including of course the study of ancient life, Palaeontology.

The classification of living things is called Taxonomy, and ideally should reflect the evolutionary trees of the different creatures.

Linnaean Taxonomy divides living things into five top-level groups, called kingdoms:

• Kingdom Prokaryotae - bacteria, etc. Formerly called Monera
• Kingdom Protista - basal protozoa, algae, etc.
• Kingdom Plantae - green algae & plants
• Kingdom Fungi - chytrids & fungi
• Kingdom Animalia - animals

and then further into phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. One way to remember the ordering is "King Phillip Cam Over For Great Spaghetti". Classical Linnaean Taxonomy does not follow evolution too well, but does pretty well for something devloped a hundred (?) years before evolution, and is continually being reformed as new evidence comes in (for instance: there were originally only two kingdoms, the plants and animals, and in the latter all the invertebrates made up a single class).