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All living organisms share several key characteristics or functions: order, sensitivity or response to the environment, reproduction, adaptation, growth and development, homeostasis, energy processing, and evolution. When viewed together, these characteristics serve to define life.
- Lisa Bartee, Walter Shriner, Catherine Creech
- 2017
- Order. Organisms are highly organized, coordinated structures that consist of one or more cells. Even very simple, single-celled organisms are remarkably complex: inside each cell, atoms make up molecules; these in turn make up cell organelles and other cellular inclusions.
- Sensitivity or Response to Stimuli. Organisms respond to diverse stimuli. For example, plants can bend toward a source of light, climb on fences and walls, or respond to touch (Figure 2).
- Reproduction. Single-celled organisms reproduce by first duplicating their DNA, and then dividing it equally as the cell prepares to divide to form two new cells.
- Growth and Development. All living things increase in size and/or change over their lifespan. For example, a human grows from a baby into an adult and goes through developmental processes such as puberty.
- Cells and Organization
- Metabolism
- Environmental Adaptation
- Homeostasis
- Growth and Development
- Reproduction
- Evolution
- Reference
Cells are the basic unit of life. The smallest organism consists of one cell. Within that cell is the cellular equivalent of organs, called organelles. Organelles are made of molecules or macromolecules such as carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. These organelles serve different functions including transferring ribonucleic acid (RNA...
Organisms must acquire and use energy in order to maintain their complex, living systems. Cells metabolize molecules, such as nutrients, to produce energy and use it for other processes, like replicating deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Some organisms, including plants and some bacteria, can convert light energy to produce nutrients. This is called pho...
Organisms must be able to adapt to their changing environments. For example, during the season when the sun is directly overhead, plants will grow upward, but they will grow more toward the side during those seasons when the sun is lower in the sky. Horses shed their coats in the spring and summer to allow for easier cooling during the warmer weath...
Organisms must maintain an internal environment that is conducive to cell metabolism. For example, humans must maintain a specific body temperature. When they are cold, they will shiver, a response that causes the muscles to produce more heat. When they are too warm, the body will produce sweat which carries heat away from the body when it evaporat...
All organisms undergo a process of growth and development. Single-celled organisms start as smaller cells that grow. The contents of the cell may become more diverse and complex. More complex organisms, such as humans, start out as a single cell that divides to create more cells. These new cells differentiate to develop into specialized cells that ...
All living organisms have DNA, which is genetic material containing the information and instructions for forming an organism. All organisms die and must be able to pass this genetic material on to create more organisms. This is done through reproduction. Single-celled organisms may divide in half and grow. Other organisms reproduce sexually, a proc...
The book, Biology, by Robert J. Brooker, et al., defines biological evolution as “the phenomenon that populations of organisms change over the course of many generations.” This can include the beak length and shape of a particular species of bird that is better suited to acquiring certain kinds of food in a particular environment. The characteristi...
Brooker, Robert J., Widmaier, Eric P., Graham, Linda E., and Stiling, Peter D. Biology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008.
All living things—even the simplest life forms—have a complex chemistry. Living things consist of large, complex molecules, and they also undergo many complicated chemical changes to stay alive. Thousands (or more) of these chemical reactions occur in each cell at any given moment.
Nov 21, 2023 · What are the 8 characteristics of life in biology? Learn these properties of life, and see examples of how to classify something as living or non-living. Updated: 11/21/2023.
Properties of Life. All living organisms share several key characteristics or functions: order, sensitivity or response to the environment, reproduction, growth and development, regulation, homeostasis, and energy processing. When viewed together, these characteristics serve to define life.
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Jun 12, 2012 · Most scientists classify living things into one of the following six kingdoms. Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms that don’t have a nuclear membrane. Protozoans are single-celled organisms that are generally much larger than bacteria. They may be autotrophic or heterotrophic.
