Identify The Relationship Between Domains And Kingdoms

The taxonomy of organisms has changed abruptly since new technology has allowed the observation of organisms’ molecular sequence data and phylogenetic relationships. Physical structure, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) similarities, biochemical similarities, evolutionary relationships, and genetic similarities are now commonly used to identify the relationship between organisms in different domains and kingdoms. Bacteria and Archaea, Fungi and Plantae, and Oomycota and Fungi were greatly misclassified before the new accepted domain and kingdom classifications. Since then, there are new derived characteristics accepted into current classifications. Before there were three domains, the five kingdoms: Monera, Protista, Plantae, Fungi, and Animalia

The cells of several eukaryotes in the kingdom Animalia also contain chitin, which is one of the characteristics that makes organisms in the kingdom Fungi more closely related those in the kingdom Animalia than the kingdom Plantae. The metabolism of Fungi is now known to be a heterotroph that absorbs its nutrients from surrounding organic material. This metabolism differentiates to plant’s autotrophic metabolism that uses photosynthesis as its food source. The organisms in the kingdom Animalia also contain heterotrophs, which aggregates to the relatedness of fungi and animals. Fungi can reproduce sexually or asexually, unlike plants. The characteristics in cell structure, metabolism, and reproduction, are evidence that Fungi are their own domain and are now the accepted classification characteristics for the kingdom Fungi. Additionally, Fungi are more closely related to organisms in the kingdom Animalia because of their afore mentioned heterotroph metabolism, chitin in cell walls, and the storage of glucose as glycogen. This demonstrates the importance of the new characteristics when classifying Fungi and the need to separate them as their own accepted kingdom.

In addition, Oomycota were thought to be fungi and were characterized as eukaryotes. The oomycetes were observed to obtain their energy by absorbing nutrients from surrounding organic material, as also seen in fungi. An additional characteristic of the oomycetes is the production of mycelium filament threads that are one of the unique structures of all fungi. These characteristics were originally used to classify Oomycota in the kingdom