Hi, now we are going to discuss about some major Characteristics of a Living Organisms which makes them different from any other non living organisms because the living systems have some special features which is unique in them and make them alive but in non living and living systems sometimes some features may confuse you to determine either the system is living or non living.
Table of Contents
Characteristics of A Living Organisms:
Living Organisms Can Perform Metabolic Reaction:
One of the most important characteristics of living systems is that they can perform different types of biochemical reactions in different situations and sometimes those biochemical reactions we can feel from outside but in some cases we have to use special instruments to detect the biochemical reactions.
It is not possible in case of non living systems though different types of physical and chemical interaction can be observed in non living systems but it is not a feature of living systems.
Living Organisms Need Food:
In a living systems different types of metabolism activity is going on continuously and most of them require a lot of energy but a living systems can only get energy from a series of biochemical reactions is known as respiration and in this process food is required as fuels for this reason living systems need continuous supply of food for their survival but as in non living systems no metabolic reaction occurs so they do not need food.
Living Organisms Can Show Locomotion and Movement Actively:
Living systems can move themselves in various ways and sometimes this movement makes them able to go from one location to another location which is known as locomotion as seen in different animals like swimming in fish, walking and running in humans.
Sometimes different types of displacement in some materials can confuse you to think of them as living, for example a wooden piece moves with the flow of a river.
One another side some living systems remain in non moving state which sometimes can confuse you to think them as non living as I’m case of a banana tree, can the banana tree show locomotion, no so is the banana tree non living, no so we can not say anything living or non-living only on the basis of movement and locomotion.
Living Organisms Can Reproduce:
It is a very important feature of a living system in which an organism can multiply itself by the process of reproduction but here also some restrictions which we will discuss now. Suppose you have a pebble in your hands now you break them into two parts so is it reproduction because here also multiplication takes place and what you will talk about is a sterile organism who can not reproduce and multiply himself.
So only reproduction can not be determining features of living and non-living systems, we have to consider other characteristics of living and non-living systems before we reach our final decision about any individual on our earth.
Living Organisms Can Grow:
One another feature of living organisms is that they can grow with time and this growth may increase in cell size in case of unicellular organisms and maybe increase in number in case of multicellular organisms which increases their size.
But can we say a island as living organisms which increases its size due to incremental accumulation of different materials in sea, no we can not say them as living organisms so grow in size is also not a determining features for reaching the final decision about any object to be living or non-living we have to consider about other features of a living organism before we can take any final decision.
Read More: Characteristics of Carnivores and Herbivores
Hi Everyone!!! Welcome to Imaluop. Imaluop always try to learn some new and he want to share to other people. Here we will try to learn various topics on Science, specially on Biological Sciences.