kingdom plantae

Biologist

2022

We explain what the plantae kingdom is, what its characteristics and classification are. How is its nutrition, reproduction and examples.

Those forms of life with photosynthetic nutrition belong to the kingdom plantae.

What is the kingdom plantae?

It is called Kingdom plantae (from the Latin “plants”) Or plant kingdom to one of the main groups in which biology classifies known living beings. With him animal Kingdom (animalia), the Mushroom kingdom (fungi), the Protist kingdom (protistae) and the Moneras kingdom (monera), constitute the traditional categories of classification of the life.

The vegetable kingdom is one of the oldest human being has studied, despite the fact that there is no strict and universal criterion regarding what to consider as a plant and what not. In general terms, this group is considered to be all forms of terrestrial plant life (trees, shrubs, grass, etc.) and all aquatic algae, as long as they carry out some form of nutrition photosynthetic.

The members of this kingdom are descended, in theory, from a group of living beings called Primoplantae or Archaeplastida: the first eukaryotes capable of photosynthesis, and whose appearance on the primitive Earth is estimated about 1,200 million years ago, during the Proterozoic Eon.

Characteristics of the Kingdom plantae

Plants, even aquatic ones, lack their own mobility.

The individuals of the plant kingdom share the following fundamental characteristics:

  • Cell wall and chloroplasts. The plant cells They have chlorophyll deposits known as chloroplasts, which gives them their green color and is essential to carry out the photosynthesis. In addition, their cells have a rigid cell wall and outside the plasma membrane, which gives them structural resistance but conditions their growth.
  • They lack mobility. Plants, even aquatic plants, lack their own mobility, that is, they are immobile. They can be displaced as a consequence of natural agents such as Water or the wind, in some cases, and also have a minimal orientation of their bodies that allows them to actively seek the sun, known as positive phototropism, but they cannot move in a habitat to another, or flee from the animals that consume them as food.
  • Cellulose compound bodies. Cellulose is a type of colorless, odorless, amorphous and water-insoluble biopolymer, alcohol and ether, which is the basic building material for the bodies of plants and some protists.

Classification of the kingdom plantae

The members of this kingdom can be classified into two sub-kingdoms:

  • Biliphytas. It is a set of algae endowed with water-soluble pigments that serve to capture the sunlight, just like cyanobacteria do. In turn, it is divided into two divisions or edges:
    • Glaucophytes. About 13 species of freshwater single-celled algae, often considered to belong to the protista kingdom.
    • Rhodophytes. Around 7,000 species of red algae.
  • Chlorobiotes. Also called Viridiplantae or simply green plants, where there are green algae and terrestrial plants of all kinds, which is why more than 300,000 different species are included here. It is in turn divided into two infra-kingdoms:
    • Chlorophytas. It contains about 8,200 species of green algae, both unicellular What multicellular.
    • Streptophytas. It contains the total set of terrestrial plants in their enormous variety of habitats, morphologies, growth patterns and defense mechanisms, as well as the algae that are evolutionarily closest to it: the so-called carophytes.

Plant nutrition

There are plants capable of feeding on the organic matter of other living beings.

The members of the plant kingdom are all autotrophs, that is, capable of generating their own food from inorganic material. This is carried out through the synthesis of sunlight or photosynthesis, and the absorption of nearby inorganic resources: water, minerals and other elements, through the roots. Then a chemical reaction energy, which requires CO2 atmospheric, water and sunlight as a source of energy, to produce molecules glucose complexes, which are then used for cellular respiration, that is, for their oxidation and obtaining chemical energy or ATP. This process by-produces oxygen molecules that are released by air, and responds to the general formula of: H2O → 2H + + 2e- + ½ O2.

There are also certain plants capable of feeding on the organic matter of other living beings, such as the famous "carnivorous" plants, which after attracting and capturing insects, proceed to digest them to take advantage of their nutrients.

Reproduction of the kingdom plantae

Pollination occurs thanks to the action of the wind or insects and other animals.

Plants reproduce in two very different ways, the sexual and the asexual, depending on its species and sometimes on the environmental conditions in which each individual is found.

  • Sexual reproduction or pollination. It occurs thanks to the action of the wind or insects and other animals, which unknowingly carry the dust or pollen generated by the flowers of plants, equivalent to their sexual organs, directly towards the pistils of some other, thus facilitating the exchange of material genetic. The flowers are then fertilized and give rise to a fruit, in which there are seeds: embryos of a new individual with a genome different from the paternal one. The fruit ripens and falls, or is eaten by animals, and its seeds are scattered. Each one will touch the ground and germinate, producing a new plant.
  • Asexual reproduction or rhizomatic. It does not involve pollination, nor flowers, but other invisible parts of the plant such as its roots, stolons or rhizomes. These parts grow as the plant has reached maturity and gathers the necessary nutrients to reproduce, thus generating an individual genetically identical to the previous one, but young, who is often physically linked to the parent for a time.

Importance of the Kingdom plantae

Plant life supports most of the world's organisms, and not only because it takes care of the production of the oxygen we breathe and serves as food in the form of fruits, leaves, stems, tubers, etc. Plants also help control gases from greenhouse effect scattered in the atmosphere, such as CO2, and to absorb water in various types of I usually, preventing their uncontrolled accumulation. Without plant life, the world would not be what it is, and for that very reason it is so important to maintain its variety, presence, and abundance.

Examples of Kingdom plantae

Trees, grass, weeds and shrubs, among others, enter the kingdom plantae.

Examples of plants in everyday life are easy to find. In this kingdom enter both the trees, the grass, the weeds and the bushes that we find in any public square or park, as well as the home ferns and the water plants that we use as home decoration. Also the marine or lake algae, the palm trees on the beach, or the cacti and thistles of the deserts.

Botany

Botany studies the internal dynamics of the plant organism, among other topics.

The branch of biological Sciences dedicated to the study of plants is known as botany and its practitioners as botanists. And just as zoologists study animals in their various aspects, botanists focus on understanding the relationships between plants or between plants and animals, in addition to the dynamics internal of the vegetal organism, and of the particular evolution that gave rise to the emergence of this kingdom of creatures.

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