Concept in Definition ABC

The concept of living being is a very general denomination that can be applied to any organism that has some function of life (reproduction, nutrition or consumption of Energy).

When we speak of a living being, we are including any plant or animal, but also the bacteria (but not viruses, which do not feed or have the functions of other beings living).

The role of biology and its various fields

The science that studies the whole of life is biology, a knowledge that is oriented to the different structures related to life: zoology, botany, ethology, medicine, genetics and a long etcetera of disciplines (some of them have aspects related to life and others that are not, such as sociobiology). In any case, the idea of ​​living beings is opposed to that of inanimate beings, such as light, air, water or minerals.

Aristotle and the first reference

The notion of being alive as a concept that explains a part of nature was already used in antiquity and specifically it was Aristotle in the IV century BC. C who made the first

classification of living things, focusing especially on animals (he divided them into those with blood and those without).

Linnaeus established the new foundations that we know today

His classification was valid until the 18th century AD, when the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus introduced a more elaborate classification system and based on the similarities in the structure between the different individuals of each species. Each group of living being was ordered by some elements, the taxa, which divide each being according to a general grouping: species, genus, family, order and class.

Some scientific disciplines study living beings from a general perspective, that is, analyzing how they are related to each other and in turn to a environment determined (biodiversity or ecology are two branches of science that analyze these types of links).

Main characteristics of living beings

In a very general way, one could speak of a series of common characteristics between different living beings: each of They are born from another being, they grow and develop until they die and have a series of basic needs (food, energy, light. water, etc). On the other hand, living beings live in a certain environment and adapt to it through a series of food chains that are related to each other.

The diversity of species that has survived have evolved through the mechanisms of natural selection. These mechanisms were described by the naturalist Charles Darwin, who spoke of adaptation to the environment and the struggle for survival as the two key factors in the evolution of the different species.

Topics in Being Alive