Which of the following hierarchies of biological systems is the largest and contains all of the other levels within it?

Abstract

Hierarchical organization is an essential characteristic of living things. Although most biologists affirm the concept of living things as hierarchically organized structures, there are widespread differences of interpretation in the meaning of hierarchy and of how the concept of hierarchy applies to living things. One such basic difference involves the distinction between the concept of control hierarchy and classification hierarchy. It is suggested that control hierarchies are distinguished from classification hierarchies in that while the former involve authority relationships between levels, the latter do not. This is illustrated in an analysis of proposed hierarchies of replicators and interactors. The analysis of levels of hierarchies and their relationships also brings up the part-whole problem. An authority relationship between levels implies that the whole has a determining influence on the parts that make up the whole, and that parts have no independent, meaningful existence apart from the whole. The concept of an authority relationship in a part-whole relationship introduces the question of the independence or sovereignty of the components of the subordinate levels in a hierarchically organized living thing. This problem is discussed along with an analysis of the rather novel theory of enkapsis proposed by H. Dooyeweerd, in which he distinguishes part-whole relationships from enkaptic relationships.

Journal Information

Synthese spans the topics of Epistemology, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. Coverage includes the theory of knowledge; general methodological problems of science, of induction and probability, of causation and the role of mathematics, statistics and logic in science; and the methodological and foundational problems of different sciences. The journal explores symbolic logic and foundations of mathematics relevant to the philosophy and methodology of science; and those facets of the ethics, history and sociology of science which are important for contemporary topical pursuits. The journal focuses on the role of mathematical, logical and linguistic methods in the general methodology of science and the foundations of different sciences. The journal includes a section on Knowledge, Rationality and Action as a platform for researchers. The scope of Knowledge, Rationality and Action is interdisciplinary: it will be of interest to researchers in the fields of artificial intelligence, agents, computer science, knowledge representation, game theory, economics, logic, philosophy, mathematics, cognitive science, cryptography, and auction theory, as well as to application specialists using formal and mathematical methods and tools.

Publisher Information

Springer is one of the leading international scientific publishing companies, publishing over 1,200 journals and more than 3,000 new books annually, covering a wide range of subjects including biomedicine and the life sciences, clinical medicine, physics, engineering, mathematics, computer sciences, and economics.

Rights & Usage

This item is part of a JSTOR Collection.
For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions
Synthese
Request Permissions

Nobody knows for certain when, how or why life began on Earth, but Aristotle observed 2,400 years ago that all the planet's biodiversity was of animal or plant origin. This initial observation by the Greek philosopher was expanded in the 19th and 20th centuries by the discovery of new kingdoms, finally arriving at today's widely-recognised five, which cover the 8.7 million species that live on Earth, according to estimates by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

WHAT IS A KINGDOM IN BIOLOGY

The system of biological kingdoms is the way in which science classifies living things according to their ancestry over the course of evolution. This means that all the species that make up these five large groups - some recent theories split them further into six or even seven - have common ancestors and therefore share some of their genes and belong to the same family tree.

As well as the kingdoms of living things there are other taxonomic categories within the same classification system such as, for instance, domain, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. They all follow a hierarchical order and are dependent on each other, so some divisions include others. In this way, the domain includes the kingdom, the kingdom the phylum, the phylum the class, and so on.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIVE KINGDOMS OF LIVING THINGS

All the species in a particular kingdom have similar characteristics in terms of their growth and the way they function. Now let's look at where the family relationships that define nature's kingdoms come from:

 Nutrition. Autotrophic (makes its own food) or heterotrophic (feeds on other living things).

 Cell organisation. Unicellular (having only one cell) or multicellular (having two or more cells).

 Cell type. Eukaryotes (the genetic material is surrounded by a membrane) or prokaryotes (lacking a membrane).

 Respiration. Aerobic (needs oxygen) or anaerobic (does not use oxygen).

 Reproduction. Sexual, asexual or through spores.

 Movement. Self-moving or static.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF LIVING THINGS INTO FIVE KINGDOMS

The first person to divide living things into five broad kingdoms was North American ecologist Robert Whittaker. This researcher proved in 1959 that fungi were not plant organisms - previously it was thought that they were - and a decade later he proposed the creation of the fungi kingdom to differentiate them from plants. Whittaker's theory was widely accepted and the scientific community thereby added a new group to the previous four-kingdom system, established by the American biologist Herbert Copeland in 1956. 

Animal kingdom

The kingdom Animalia is the most evolved and is divided into two large groups - vertebrates and invertebrates. These animals are multi-celled, heterotrophic eukaryotes with aerobic respiration, sexual reproduction and the ability to move. This kingdom is one of the most diverse and comprises mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, molluscs and annelids, among others.

Plant kingdom

Trees, plants and other species of vegetation make up part of the Plantae kingdom - one of the oldest, and characterised by its immobile, multicellular and eukaryotic nature. These autotrophic things, whose cells contain cellulose and chlorophyll are essential for life on Earth since they release oxygen through photosynthesis. As regards their method of reproduction, this may be either sexual or asexual.

Which is the largest level of biological system?

What is the hierarchy of biological systems?

Which of the following levels of biological organization contains all of the others?

What is the hierarchical order of the body from smallest to largest?