query: part_of identification 
supports: Identification in biology is the process of assigning a pre-existing taxon name to an individual organism . Identification of organisms to individual scientific names ( or codes ) may be based on individualistic natural body features ( e. g. ) , experimentally created individual markers ( e.g. , color dot patterns ) , or natural individualistic molecular markers ( similar to those used in maternity or paternity identification tests ) . Individual identification is used , e.g. , in ecology , wildlife management or conservation biology . The more common form of identification is the identification of organisms to common names ( e. g. , `` lion '' ) or scientific name ( e. g. , `` Panthera leo '' ) . By necessity this is based on inherited features ( `` characters '' ) of the sexual organisms , the inheritance forming the basis of defining a class . The features may , e. g. , be morphological , anatomical , physiological , behavioral , or molecular . The term `` determination '' may occasionally be used as a synonym for identification ( e. g. ) , or as in `` determination slips '' . Identification methods may be manual or computerized and may involve using identification keys , browsing through fields guide that contain ( often illustrated ) species accounts , or comparing the organism with specimens from natural history collections . Ecology (from , "house", or "environment"; -, "study of") is the scientific analysis and study of interactions among organisms and their environment. It is an interdisciplinary field that includes biology, geography, and Earth science. Ecology includes the study of interactions organisms have with each other, other organisms, and with abiotic components of their environment. Topics of interest to ecologists include the diversity, distribution, amount (biomass), and number (population) of particular organisms, as well as cooperation and competition between organisms, both within and among ecosystems. Ecosystems are composed of dynamically interacting parts including organisms, the communities they make up, and the non-living components of their environment. Ecosystem processes, such as primary production, pedogenesis, nutrient cycling, and various niche construction activities, regulate the flux of energy and matter through an environment. These processes are sustained by organisms with specific life history traits, and the variety of organisms is called biodiversity. Biodiversity, which refers to the varieties of species, genes, and ecosystems, enhances certain ecosystem services. Biomass is organic matter derived from living, or recently living organisms. Biomass can be used as a source of energy and it most often refers to plants or plant-based materials that are not used for food or feed, and are specifically called lignocellulosic biomass. As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly via combustion to produce heat, or indirectly after converting it to various forms of biofuel. Conversion of biomass to biofuel can be achieved by different methods which are broadly classified into: "thermal", "chemical", and "biochemical" methods. In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system, such as an animal, plant, fungus, archaeon, or bacterium. All known types of organisms are capable of some degree of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development and homeostasis. An organism consists of one or more cells; when it has one cell it is known as a unicellular organism; and when it has more than one it is known as a multicellular organism. Most unicellular organisms are of microscopic scale and are thus loosely described as microorganisms. Humans are multicellular organisms composed of many trillions of cells grouped into specialized tissues and organs. Natural resources are resources that exist without actions of humankind. This includes all valued characteristics such as magnetic, gravitational, and electrical properties and forces. On earth it includes: sunlight, atmosphere, water, land (includes all minerals) along with all vegetation and animal life that naturally subsists upon or within the heretofore identified characteristics and substances. Earth science or geoscience is a widely embraced term for the fields of science related to the planet Earth. Earth science can be considered to be a branch of planetary science, but with a much older history. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences. The Earth sciences can include the study of geology, the lithosphere, and the large-scale structure of the Earth's interior, as well as the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. Typically, Earth scientists use tools from geography, chronology, physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics to build a quantitative understanding of how the Earth system works and evolves. Wildlife management attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. Wildlife management can include game keeping, wildlife conservation and pest control. Wildlife management draws on disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, ecology, climatology and geography to gain the best results. A system is a set of interacting or interdependent component parts forming a complex or intricate whole. Every system is delineated by its spatial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described by its structure and purpose and expressed in its functioning. Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules. Conservation biology is the management of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on natural and social sciences, and the practice of natural resource management. Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms  "offspring"  are produced from their "parents". Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction. There are two forms of reproduction: asexual and sexual. Heredity is the genetic information passing for traits from parents to their offspring, either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction. This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve through the natural selection of specific phenotype traits. The study of heredity in biology is called genetics, which includes the field of epigenetics. Pedogenesis (from the Greek "pedo"-, or "pedon", meaning 'soil, earth,' and "genesis", meaning 'origin, birth') (also termed soil development, soil evolution, soil formation, and soil genesis) is the process of soil formation as regulated by the effects of place, environment, and history. Biogeochemical processes act to both create and destroy order (anisotropy) within soils. These alterations lead to the development of layers, termed soil horizons, distinguished by differences in color, structure, texture, and chemistry. These features occur in patterns of soil type distribution, forming in response to differences in soil forming factors. A fungus (plural: fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes unicellular microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as multicellular fungi that produce familiar fruiting forms such as mushrooms and bracket fungi. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from the other eukaryotic life kingdoms of plants and animals. Climatology (from Greek , "klima", "place, zone"; and , "-logia") or climate science is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time. This modern field of study is regarded as a branch of the atmospheric sciences and a subfield of physical geography, which is one of the Earth sciences. Climatology now includes aspects of oceanography and biogeochemistry. Basic knowledge of climate can be used within shorter term weather forecasting using analog techniques such as the El NiñoSouthern Oscillation (ENSO), the MaddenJulian oscillation (MJO), the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), the Northern Annular Mode (NAM) which is also known as the Arctic oscillation (AO), the Northern Pacific (NP) Index, the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). Climate models are used for a variety of purposes from study of the dynamics of the weather and climate system to projections of future climate. Humankind benefits in a multitude of ways from ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are becoming known as ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are regularly involved in the provisioning of clean drinking water and the decomposition of wastes. While scientists and environmentalists have discussed ecosystem services implicitly for decades, the ecosystem services concept itself was popularized by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in the early 2000s. This grouped ecosystem services into four broad categories: "provisioning", such as the production of food and water; "regulating", such as the control of climate and disease; "supporting", such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and "cultural", such as spiritual and recreational benefits. To help inform decision-makers, many ecosystem services are being assigned economic values. Geography (from Greek , "geographia", literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth. The first person to use the word "" was Eratosthenes (276194 BC). Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of the Earth and its human and natural complexitiesnot merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. It is often defined in terms of the two branches of human geography and physical geography. The four historical traditions in geographical research are: spatial analyses of natural and the human phenomena, area studies of places and regions, studies of human-land relationships, and the Earth sciences. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical sciences". Conservation is the practice of protecting wild plant and animal species and their habitats. The goal of wildlife conservation is to ensure that nature will be around for future generations to enjoy and also to recognize the importance of wildlife and wilderness for humans and other species alike. Many nations have government agencies and NGO's dedicated to wildlife conservation, which help to implement policies designed to protect wildlife. Numerous independent non-profit organizations also promote various wildlife conservation causes. Natural resource management refers to the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations (stewardship). An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. As ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can be of any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces (although some scientists say that the entire planet is an ecosystem). Life is a characteristic distinguishing physical entities having biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased, or because they never had such functions and are classified as inanimate. Various forms of life exist, such as plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria. The criteria can at times be ambiguous and may or may not define viruses, viroids, or potential artificial life as "living". Biology is the primary science concerned with the study of life, although many other sciences are involved. In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. Abiotic factors and phenomena associated with them underpin all biology. In biology, a species (abbreviated sp., with the plural form species abbreviated spp.) is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. While this definition is often adequate, looked at more closely it is often problematic. For example, in a species complex, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear or disappear altogether. Other ways of defining species include similarity of DNA, morphology, or ecological niche. The presence of locally adaptive traits may further subdivide species into infraspecific taxa such as subspecies. Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, identification and taxonomy. Modern biology is a vast and eclectic field, composed of many branches and subdisciplines. However, despite the broad scope of biology, there are certain general and unifying concepts within it that govern all study and research, consolidating it into single, coherent field. In general, biology recognizes the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity, and evolution as the engine that propels the synthesis and creation of new species. It is also understood today that all the organisms survive by consuming and transforming energy and by regulating their internal environment to maintain a stable and vital condition known as homeostasis. Niche construction is the process in which an organism alters its own (or other species') environment, often but not always in a manner that increases its chances of survival. Changes that organisms bring about in their worlds that are of no evolutionary or ecological consequence are not examples of niche construction. Several biologists have argued that niche construction is as important to evolution as natural selection (i.e., not only does an environment cause changes in species through selection, but species also cause changes in their environment through niche construction). This back-and-forth creates a feedback relationship between natural selection and niche-construction: when organisms affect their environment, that change can then cause a shift in what traits are being naturally selected for. The effect of niche construction is especially pronounced in situations where environmental alterations persist for several generations, introducing the evolutionary role of ecological inheritance. Less drastic niche-constructing behaviors are also quite possible for an organism. This theory, in conjunction with natural selection, shows that organisms inherit two legacies from their ancestors: genes and a modified environment. Together, these two evolutionary mechanisms determine a population's fitness and what adaptations those organisms develop in the continuation for their survival. Homeostasis or homoeostasis is the property of a system in which a variable (for example, the concentration of a substance in solution, or its temperature) is actively regulated to remain very nearly constant. This regulation occurs inside a defined environment (mostly within a living organism's body). Examples of homeostasis include the regulation of the body temperature of an animal, the pH of its extracellular fluids, or the concentrations of sodium (Na) and calcium (Ca) ions or of glucose in the blood plasma, despite changes in the animals environment, or what it has eaten, or what it is doing (for example, resting or exercising). Each of these variables is controlled by a separate homeostat (or regulator), which, together, maintain life. Homeostats are energy-consuming physiological mechanisms. Chemistry is a branch of physical science that studies the composition, structure, properties and change of matter. Chemistry includes topics such as the properties of individual atoms, how atoms form chemical bonds to create chemical compounds, the interactions of substances through intermolecular forces that give matter its general properties, and the interactions between substances through chemical reactions to form different substances. Wildlife traditionally refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all plants, fungi, and other organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Multicellular organisms are organisms that consist of more than one cell, in contrast to unicellular organisms. In biology, a taxon (plural taxa; back-formation from "taxonomy") is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking, especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established. It is not uncommon, however, for taxonomists to remain at odds over what belongs to a taxon and the criteria used for inclusion. If a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is then governed by one of the nomenclature codes specifying which scientific name is correct for a particular grouping. Biodiversity, a contraction of "biological diversity," generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. One of the most widely used definitions defines it in terms of the variability within species, between species and between ecosystems. It is a measure of the variety of organisms present in different ecosystems. This can refer to genetic variation, ecosystem variation, or species variation (number of species) within an area, biome, or planet. Terrestrial biodiversity tends to be greater near the equator, which seems to be the result of the warm climate and high primary productivity. Biodiversity is not distributed evenly on Earth. It is richest in the tropics. Marine biodiversity tends to be highest along coasts in the Western Pacific, where sea surface temperature is highest and in the mid-latitudinal band in all oceans. There are latitudinal gradients in species diversity. Biodiversity generally tends to cluster in hotspots, and has been increasing through time, but will be likely to slow in the future. The microscopic scale (from , "mikrós", "small" and , "skopé" "look") is the scale of objects and events smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye, requiring a lens or microscope to see them clearly. In physics, the microscopic scale is sometimes considered the scale between the macroscopic and the quantum regime.  A unicellular organism, also known as a single-celled organism, is an organism that consists of only one cell, unlike a multicellular organism that consists of more than one cell. Historically, simple unicellular organisms have been referred to as monads, though this term is also used more specifically to describe organisms of the genus "Monas" and similar flagellate ameboids. The main groups of unicellular organisms are bacteria, archaea, protozoa, unicellular algae, and unicellular fungi. Unicellular organisms fall into two general categories: prokaryotic organisms and eukaryotic organisms. Unicellular organisms are thought to be the oldest form of life, with early protocells possibly emerging 3.84 billion years ago. In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms (taxon), normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. In ecology, primary production is the synthesis of organic compounds from atmospheric or aqueous carbon dioxide. It principally occurs through the process of photosynthesis, which uses light as its source of energy, but it also occurs through chemosynthesis, which uses the oxidation or reduction of inorganic chemical compounds as its source of energy. Almost all life on Earth relies directly or indirectly on primary production. The organisms responsible for primary production are known as "primary producers" or autotrophs, and form the base of the food chain. In terrestrial ecoregions, these are mainly plants, while in aquatic ecoregions algae predominate in this role. Ecologists distinguish primary production as either "net" or "gross", the former accounting for losses to processes such as cellular respiration, the latter not. Nomenclature codes or codes of nomenclature are the various rulebooks that govern biological taxonomic nomenclature, each in their own broad field of organisms. To an end-user who only deals with names of species, with some awareness that species are assignable to families, it may not be noticeable that there is more than one code, but beyond this basic level these are rather different in the way they work. Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia (also called Metazoa). The animal kingdom emerged as a basal clade within Apoikozoa as a sister of the choanoflagellates. Sponges are the most basal clade of animals. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs: they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance. In physics, energy is the property that must be transferred to an object in order to perform work on  or to heat  the object, and can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed. The SI unit of energy is the joule, which is the energy transferred to an object by the mechanical work of moving it a distance of 1 metre against a force of 1 newton. Pest control refers to the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, and can be perceived to be detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy. A practitioner of pest control is called an exterminator. Natural science is a branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on observational and empirical evidence. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances. A population is the number of all the organisms of the same group or species, which live in a particular geographical area, and have the capability of interbreeding. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Earth, otherwise known as the world, is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life. It is the densest planet in the Solar System and the largest of the four terrestrial planets. A gene is a locus (or region) of DNA which is made up of nucleotides and is the molecular unit of heredity. The transmission of genes to an organism's offspring is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits. Most biological traits are under the influence of polygenes (many different genes) as well as geneenvironment interactions. Some genetic traits are instantly visible, such as eye colour or number of limbs, and some are not, such as blood type, risk for specific diseases, or the thousands of basic biochemical processes that comprise life.
candidates: 2000s animal animals atmosphere atmospheric sciences back biology cell chemistry climatology community disease dna drawing dynamics earth ecology ecosystem evolution eye food chain gene genus geography geology government health history house life ma mathematics may millennium np oceanography organism person physics plant population process production science sexual reproduction species system taxonomy thought universe variety weather wild wildlife word work
answer: taxonomy