Eukaryotic Organisms - Plants, Animals, Fungi And Protoctista

Question 1

What are the features of plants?

Answer 1

• multicellular organisms
• their cells contain chloroplasts and are able to carry out photosynthesis
• their cells have cellulose walls
• they store carbohydrates as starch or sucrose
• examples include flowering plants, such as maize, peas and beans

Question 2

What are the features of animals?

Answer 2

• multicellular organisms
• cells don’t contain chloroplasts as they are not able to carry out photosynthesis
• no cell walls
• nervous co ordination and are able to move from one place to another
• store carbohydrates as glycogen
• examples include mammals - humans - and insects

Question 3

What are the features of fungi?

Answer 3

• can’t carry out photosynthesis
• their body is organised into a mycelium made from thread like structures called hyphae which contains many nuclei
• some examples are single celled - their cells have walls made of chitin
• they feed by extracellular secretion of digestive enzymes onto food material and absorption of the organic products - this is known as as saprotrophic nutrition - they may store crabs as glycogen
• examples include mucor

Question 4

What are the features of protoctists ?

Answer 4

• microscopic single-celled organisms
• amoeba that live in pond water have features like an animal cell while others like chlorella have chloroplasts and are more like plants
• a pathogenic example is Plasmodium responsible for causing malaria

Question 5

What are pathogens?

Answer 5

Organisms that cause disease, they include fungi, protoctists and bacteria
Viruses are also pathogens

Question 6

What are examples of pathogens?

Answer 6

Protoctists: plasmodium which causes malaria
Bacterium: pneumococcus, which causes pneumonia
Viruses: influenza virus which causes flu and HIV

Question 7

What are the features of viruses?

Answer 7

• not living organism
• small particles, smaller than bacteria
• they are parasitic and can reproduce only inside living cells
• they infect every type of living organism
• they have a wide variety of shapes and sizes
• no cellular structure
• no protein coat and contain one type of nucleic acid - either DNA or RNA
• examples include the influenza virus