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WHY PLANTS ARE LIVINGTHINGS

There is no absolute definition of what we count as a living organism. The definition has changed over time. A living organism generally has a cellular structure, but viruses are currently counted amongst living things, and they do not.
• Living things have a variety of characteristics that will be displayed to different degrees: they respire, move, respond to stimuli, reproduce and grow, and are adapted within a complex of living things within an environment.
• When a plant is picked or cut, or an animal dies, some basic life process will continue to occur. There is no universally agreed answer to the question ‘Is it alive?’.
• The way living things are classified has changed over time. Animals and plants are the main ‘kingdoms’, but fungi, mosses and viruses have their own separate kingdoms.
• Animals are ‘consumers’ in that they ingest food to survive. Food provides the energy for life processes.
• Plants are ‘producers’ and grow through the photosynthetic process by which carbon dioxide and water are used to produce starches (of which the plant material is made). Sunlight provides the energy to drive this process.
• Animals and plants are further divided. A major category of plants is ‘flowering plants’ or angiosperms. These differ from conifers and ferns, for instance, in the way they reproduce. Animals include a multitude of organisms, from microscopic creatures, through insects, reptiles, mammals, and so on. These different organisms are all interconnected through an evolutionary history.


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