Definition of living matter. Living substance. Properties and functions of living matter

"On the earth's surface there is no chemical force more powerful in its final effects than living organisms taken as a whole.

What fundamentally distinguishes our planet from any other planet solar system? The manifestation of life. “If there were no life on Earth, its face would be exactly the same unchanged and chemically inert, like the immovable face of the Moon, like inert fragments of celestial bodies.”

Living matter The biosphere is the totality of all its living organisms. As a scientist V.I. Vernadsky understands that the object of his research requires certain characteristics, and therefore notes: "I will call the totality of organisms reduced to mass, chemical composition and energy, living matter." Living matter in his understanding is a form of active matter, and its energy is the greater, the greater the mass of living matter. The concept of "living matter" was introduced into science by V.I. Vernadsky and understood above him the totality of all living organisms of the planet.

What are the properties of living matter?

Properties of living matter

The living matter of the biosphere is characterized by a huge free energy, which could only be compared with a fiery lava flow, but the energy of lava is not long-term.

In living matter, due to the presence of enzymes, chemical reactions occur thousands, and sometimes millions of times faster than in non-living. For life processes, it is characteristic that the substances and energy received by the body are processed and given off in a significantly large quantities. For example, the mass of insects that a tit eats per day is equal to its own mass, and some caterpillars consume and process 200 times more food per day than they weigh themselves.

Individual chemical elements (proteins, enzymes, and sometimes individual mineral compounds are synthesized only in living organisms).

Living matter tends to fill all possible space. IN AND. Vernadsky names two specific forms of motion of living matter:

a) passive, which is carried out by reproduction, and is inherent in both animal and plant organisms;

b) active, which is carried out due to the directed movement of organisms (a smaller measure of character for plants).

Living matter exhibits much greater morphological and chemical diversity than non-living matter. In nature, more than 2 million organic compounds are known that are part of living matter, while the number of minerals in inanimate matter is about 2 thousand, that is, three orders of magnitude lower.

Living matter is represented by dispersed bodies - individual organisms, each of which has its own genesis, its own genetic composition. the size of individual organisms ranges from 2 nm in the smallest to 100 m (range over 109). Sequoias are considered the largest of plants, and whales are considered the largest of animals. According to Vernadsky, the minimum and maximum dimensions organisms are determined by the limiting possibilities of their gas exchange with the environment.

Being dispersed, living matter never comes across on Earth in a morphologically pure form, for example, in the form of a population species. It can exist only in the form of a biocenosis: "... even a simple biocenosis of some dry pine forest on the sand is a grouping that consists of about a thousand species of living organisms."

Redi's principle (Florentine academician, physician and naturalist, 1626-1697: "everything living from living" is distinctive feature living matter that exists on Earth in the form of a continuous alternation of generations and is characterized by a genetic connection with living matter of all past geological epochs. Inanimate abiogenic substances, as is known, enter the biosphere from space, they are also carried out in portions from the shell the globe. They may be similar in composition, but in general they do not have a genetic connection. "The Redi principle ... does not indicate the impossibility of abiogenesis outside the biosphere or when establishing the presence in the biosphere (now or earlier) of physicochemical phenomena that were not accepted in the scientific definition of this form of organization of the earth's shell" .

Living matter in the form of concrete organisms, unlike non-living matter, carries out tremendous work throughout its historical life. In fact, only the biogenic substances of the metabiosphere are the integral of the mass of living matter, while the mass of inanimate matter of terrestrial origin is a constant value in geological history: 1 g of Archean granite remains today 1 g of the same substance, and the same mass of living matter, that is, 1 g, existed for billions of years due to generational changes and all this time carried out geological work.

Functions of living matter

What are the functions of living matter in the biosphere?

IN AND. Vernadsky names such: a) gas; b) oxygen; c) descriptive; d) calcium; e) recovery; e) concentration; g) destruction of organic substances; h) restorative decay; i) metabolism and respiration of organisms.

A.V. Lapo rearranged the functions named by Vernadsky (Table 1).

Table 1.

The main functions of living matter in the biosphere

The first is the energy function. “Only life with its morphological complication can retain solar radiation on Earth for millions of years, as we will see in the example of coal. Indeed, only thanks to the "green screen" of the biosphere - photoautotrophs - solar energy does not just bounce off the surface of the planet, heating only surface layer, and penetrates deep into the thickness earth's crust and is an energy source, in fact, for all exogenous processes.

The mass of living matter is only 0.01% of the mass of the entire biosphere. Nevertheless, the living matter of the biosphere is its main component.

The greatest concentration of life in the biosphere is observed at the boundaries of contact between the earth's shells: the atmosphere and lithosphere (land surface), atmosphere and hydrosphere (ocean surface), and especially at the boundaries of three shells - the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere (coastal zones). These are the places where V.I. Vernadsky called "films of life". Up and down from these surfaces, the concentration of living matter decreases.

All systems studied by ecology include biotic components that together form living matter.

The term "living matter" was introduced into the literature by V. I. Vernadsky, by which he understood the totality of all living organisms, expressed through mass, energy and chemical composition. Life on Earth is the most outstanding process on its surface, receiving the life-giving energy of the Sun and putting into motion almost all the chemical elements of the periodic table.

According to modern estimates, the total mass of living matter in the biosphere is about 2400 billion tons (table).

Table Total mass of living matter in the biosphere

The mass of living matter on the surface of the continents is 800 times greater than the biomass of the World Ocean. On the surface of the continents, plants sharply predominate in their mass over animals. In the ocean, we observe the opposite relationship: 93.7% of the biomass of the sea is accounted for by animals. This is mainly due to the fact that in the marine environment there are the most favorable conditions for the nutrition of animals. The smallest plant organisms that make up phytoplankton and live in the illuminated zone of the seas and oceans are quickly eaten by marine animals and, thus, the transition of organic substances from the plant form to the animal form shifts the biomass sharply towards the predominance of animals.

All living matter in its mass occupies an insignificant place in comparison with any of the upper geospheres of the globe. For example, the mass of the atmosphere is 2150 times greater, the hydrosphere is 602000 times greater, and the earth's crust is 1670000 times greater.

However, due to its active influence on environment living matter takes special place and qualitatively sharply differs from other inorganic natural formations that make up the biosphere. First of all, this is due to the fact that living organisms, thanks to biological catalysts (enzymes), perform, in the words of Academician L.S. Berg, from a physicochemical point of view, something incredible. For example, they are able to fix the molecular nitrogen of the atmosphere in their body at the usual temperature and pressure values ​​for the natural environment.

In industrial conditions, the binding of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia (NH 3) requires a temperature of the order of 500 ° C and a pressure of 300-500 atmospheres. In living organisms, the rates of chemical reactions in the process of metabolism increase by several orders of magnitude.

IN AND. Vernadsky in this regard called living matter a form of extremely activated matter.

To the main unique features living matter, causing its high transformative activity, can be attributed to:

1. Ability to quickly occupy free space , which is associated with both intensive reproduction and the ability of organisms to intensively increase the surface of their bodies or the communities they form ( ubiquity life ).

2. Movement is not only passive (under the influence of gravity) but also active. For example, against the flow of water, gravity, the movement of air currents.

3. Persistence during life and rapid decomposition after death (inclusion in cycles), while maintaining high physical and chemical activity.

4. High adaptability (adaptation) to different conditions and in connection with this, the development of not only all environments of life (aquatic, ground-air, soil), but also extremely difficult in terms of physical and chemical parameters.

5. Phenomenally fast chemical reactions . It is several orders of magnitude greater than in inanimate nature. This property can be judged by the rate of processing of matter by organisms in the process of life. For example, the caterpillars of some insects process an amount of a substance per day that is 100 to 200 times their body weight.

6. High rate of renewal of living matter . It is estimated that on average for the biosphere it is about 8 years (for land, 14 years, and for the ocean, where organisms with a short life span predominate, 33 days).

7. Variety of shapes, sizes and chemical options , significantly exceeding many contrasts in inanimate, inert matter.

8. Individuality (there are no identical species and even individuals in the world).

All the listed and other properties of living matter are determined by the concentration of large reserves of energy in it. IN AND. Vernadsky noted that only lava formed during volcanic eruptions can compete with living matter in terms of energy saturation.

Functions of living matter. All activity of living matter in the biosphere can, with a certain degree of conventionality, be reduced to several fundamental functions that can significantly complement the idea of ​​its transformative biospheric-geological activity.

1. Energy . This one of the most important functions is associated with the storage of energy in the process of photosynthesis, its transfer through food chains and dissipation in the surrounding space.

2. Gas - associated with the ability to change and maintain a certain gas composition of the environment and the atmosphere as a whole.

3. redox - is associated with an increase in the intensity of processes such as oxidation and reduction under the influence of living matter.

4. concentration - the ability of organisms to concentrate scattered chemical elements in their body, increasing their content by several orders of magnitude, compared with the environment, and in the body of individual organisms - millions of times. The result of concentration activity is deposits of combustible minerals, limestone, ore deposits, etc.

5. destructive - destruction by organisms and products of their vital activity, including after their death, both the remains of organic matter themselves and inert substances. The main mechanism of this function is associated with the circulation of substances. The most significant role in this regard is played by the lower forms of life - fungi, bacteria (destructors, decomposers).

6. Transport - the transfer of matter and energy as a result of the active form of movement of organisms. Often such a transfer is carried out over enormous distances, for example, during migrations and nomadic movements of animals.

7. Environment-forming . This function is largely the result of the combined action of other functions. Ultimately, it is associated with the transformation of the physicochemical parameters of the medium. This function can be considered in a broader and narrower terms. In a broad sense, the result of this function is the entire natural environment. It was created by living organisms, and they also maintain its parameters in a relatively stable state in almost all geospheres. In a narrower sense, the environment-forming function of living matter is manifested, for example, in the formation and preservation of soils from destruction (erosion), in the purification of air and water from pollution, in strengthening the supply of groundwater sources, etc.

8. Scattering function opposite to concentration. It manifests itself through the trophic (nutritional) and transport activities of organisms. For example, the dispersion of matter during the excretion of excrement by organisms, the death of organisms during various kinds of movements in space, and the change of covers.

9. Informational the function of living matter is expressed in the fact that living organisms and their communities accumulate information, fix it in hereditary structures and pass it on to subsequent generations. This is one of the manifestations of adaptive mechanisms.

Despite the huge variety of forms, all living matter is physically and chemically the same . And this is one of the fundamental laws of everything. organic world- the law of physical and chemical unity of living matter. It follows from it that there is no such physical or chemical agent that would be fatal for some organisms and absolutely harmless to others. The difference is only quantitative - some organisms are more sensitive, others less, some adapt faster, others slower. In this case, adaptation occurs in the course of natural selection, i.e. due to the death of those individuals who could not adapt to new conditions.

Thus, the biosphere is a complex dynamic system that captures, accumulates and transfers energy through the exchange of substances between living matter and the environment.

For a long time it was believed that alive differs from inanimate properties such as metabolism, mobility, irritability, growth, reproduction, adaptability. However, all these properties are also found separately among inanimate nature, and therefore cannot be considered as specific properties of the living.

Features of the living B. M. Mednikov (1982) formulated in the form axioms of theoretical biology:

1. All living organisms turn out to be the unity of the phenotype and the program for its construction (genotype), which is inherited from generation to generation (axiom of A. Weisman) * .

2. The genetic program is formed in a matrix way. The gene of the previous generation is used as a matrix on which the gene of the future generation is built. (axiom of N.K. Koltsov).

3. In the process of transmission from generation to generation, genetic programs as a result various reasons change randomly and non-directionally, and only by chance can such changes be successful in a given environment (1st axiom of Ch. Darwin).

4. Random changes in genetic programs during the formation of the phenotype are greatly amplified (axiom of N. V. Timofeev-Resovsky).

5. Repeatedly enhanced changes in genetic programs are subject to selection by environmental conditions (2nd axiom of Ch. Darwin).

From these axioms one can deduce all the basic properties of living nature, and first of all such as discreteness and integrity- two fundamental properties of the organization of life on Earth. Among living systems there are no two identical individuals, populations and species. This uniqueness of the manifestation of discreteness and integrity is based on the phenomenon of convariant reduplication.

Convariant reduplication(self-reproduction with changes) is carried out on the basis of the matrix principle (the sum of the first three axioms). This is probably the only property specific to life, in the form of its existence known to us on Earth. It is based on the unique ability to self-reproduce the main control systems (DNA, chromosomes, genes).

Reduplication is determined by the matrix principle (N. K. Koltsov's axiom) of the synthesis of macromolecules (Fig. 2.4).

Fig. 2.4. Scheme of DNA replication (according to J. Savage, 1969)

Note. The process is associated with the separation of base pairs (adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine: A-T, G-C) and unwinding of the two chains of the original helix. Each strand is used as a template for the synthesis of a new strand

Ability to self-reproduction according to the matrix principle DNA molecules were able to fulfill the role of the heredity carrier of the original control systems (A. Weisman's axiom). Con-variant reduplication means the possibility of inheriting discrete deviations from the initial state (mutations), the prerequisites for the evolution of life.

Living matter in terms of its mass, it occupies an insignificant fraction compared to any of the upper shells of the globe. According to modern estimates, the total mass of living matter in our time is 2420 billion tons. This value can be compared with the mass of the Earth's shells, to some extent covered by the biosphere (Table 2.2).

Table2.2

The mass of living matter in the biosphere

In terms of its active influence on the environment, living matter occupies a special place and qualitatively differs sharply from other shells of the globe, just as living matter differs from dead matter.

VI Vernadsky emphasized that living matter is the most active form of matter in the Universe. It carries out gigantic geochemical work in the biosphere, completely transforming the upper shells of the Earth during its existence. All living matter on our planet is 1/11,000,000 of the mass of the entire earth's crust. In qualitative terms, living matter is the most organized part of the Earth's matter.

When assessing the average chemical composition of living matter, according to A.P. Vinogradov (1975), V. Larcher (1978) and others, the main components of living matter are elements that are widespread in nature (atmosphere, hydrosphere, space): hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur (Table 2.3, Fig. 2.5).

Table2.3

Elementary composition of stellar and solar matter in comparison with the composition of plants and animals

Fig. 2.5. The ratio of chemical elements in living

matter, hydrosphere, lithosphere and in the mass of the Earth as a whole

The living matter of the biosphere consists of the simplest and most common atoms in space.

The average elemental composition of living matter differs from the composition of the earth's crust high content carbon. According to the content of other elements, living organisms do not repeat the composition of their environment. They selectively absorb the elements needed to build their tissues.

In the process of life, organisms use the most accessible atoms capable of forming stable chemical bonds. As already noted, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur are the main chemical elements of terrestrial matter and they are called biofeedback. Their atoms create complex molecules in living organisms in combination with water and mineral salts. These molecular structures are represented by carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids. The listed parts of living matter are in close interaction in organisms. The world of living organisms of the biosphere surrounding us is a combination of various biological systems of different structural order and different organizational positions. In this regard, different levels of existence of living matter are distinguished, from large molecules to plants and animals of various organizations.

1.Molecular(genetic) - the lowest level at which the biological system manifests itself in the form of the functioning of biologically active large molecules-proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates. From this level, properties are observed that are characteristic exclusively of living matter: the metabolism that occurs during the transformation of radiant and chemical energy, the transmission of heredity with the help of DNA and RNA. This level is characterized by the stability of structures in generations.

2.Cellular- the level at which biologically active molecules combine in- single system. With regard to cellular organization, all organisms are divided into unicellular and multicellular.

3.Fabric- the level at which a combination of similar cells forms a tissue. It covers a set of cells united by a common origin and functions.

4.Organ- the level at which several types of tissues interact functionally and form a specific organ.

5.Organismic- the level at which the interaction of a number of organs is reduced to a single system of an individual organism. Introduced certain types organisms.

6.population-species, where there is a collection of certain homogeneous organisms, connected by the unity of origin, way of life and habitat. At this level, elementary evolutionary changes take place in general.

7.Biocenosis and biogeocenosis(ecosystem)-more high level organization of living matter, uniting organisms of different species composition. In biogeocenosis, they interact with each other in a certain area of ​​the earth's surface with homogeneous abiotic factors.

8.biospheric- the level at which a natural system of the highest rank was formed, covering all manifestations of life within our planet. At this level, all cycles of matter occur on a global scale, associated with the vital activity of organisms.

According to the method of nutrition, living matter is divided into autotrophs and heterotrophs.

Autotrophs(from Greek autos - itself, trof - feed, feed) are called organisms that take the chemical elements they need for life from the surrounding bone matter and do not require ready-made organic compounds of another organism to build their body. The main source of energy used by autotrophs is the sun.

Autotrophs are divided into photoautotrophs and chemoautotrophs. Photoautotrophs use sunlight as a source of energy chemoautotrophs use the energy of oxidation of inorganic substances.

Autotrophic organisms include algae, terrestrial terrestrial plants, bacteria capable of photosynthesis, as well as some bacteria capable of oxidizing inorganic substances (chemoautotrophs). Autotrophs are the primary producers of organic matter in the biosphere.

Heterotrophs(from the Greek geter - another) - organisms that need for their nutrition in organic matter formed by other organisms. Heterotrophs are able to decompose all substances formed by autotrophs, and many of those that humans synthesize.

Living matter is stable only in living organisms; it tends to fill all possible space with itself. "The pressure of life" called this phenomenon V. I. Vernadsky.

On Earth, of the existing living organisms, the giant puffball mushroom has the greatest reproductive power. Each instance of this fungus can produce up to 7.5 billion spores. If each spore would serve as the beginning of a new organism, then the volume of raincoats already in the second generation was 800 times larger than the size of our planet.

Thus, the most general and specific property alive- the ability to self-reproduce, covariant reduplication based on the matrix principle. This ability, together with other features of living beings, determines the existence of the main levels of organization of living things. All levels of life organization are in complex interaction as part of a single whole. Each level has its own laws that determine the features of the evolution of all forms of organ

lowering of the living. The ability to evolve acts as an attribute of life, directly arising from the unique ability of the living to self-reproduce discrete biological units. The specific properties of life ensure not only the reproduction of their own kind (heredity), but also the changes necessary for evolution in self-reproducing structures (variability).

Types of substances that make up the biosphere (according to V.I. Vernadsky)

According to V.I. Vernadsky, the substance of the biosphere consists of:

Living matter - biomass of modern living organisms ;

Biogenic substance - created by life and being a source of extremely powerful potential energy (all forms of detritus, as well as peat, coal, oil and gas of biogenic origin);

Bio-inert substance - formed simultaneously by inert processes and living organisms (mixtures of biogenic substances with mineral rocks of non-biogenic origin - soil, silt, natural waters, gas and oil shale, tar sands, part of sedimentary carbonates);

Inert substance - formed by processes in which living matter did not participate ( rocks, minerals, sediments not affected by direct biogeochemical effects of organisms).

According to data based on the content of energy or carbon, the amount of living, biogenic and bioinert matter in the biosphere correlates as 1:20:4000.

The entire set of organisms on the planet I.I. Vernadsky called living matter, considering the total mass, chemical composition and energy as its basic characteristics.

The law of constancy, formulated by V.I. Vernadsky, says:

The amount of living matter in the biosphere (for a given geological period) is a constant value (constant).

Living matter- ϶ᴛᴏ totality and biomass of living organisms in the biosphere. Vernadsky (1967, p. 241) wrote: ʼʼThere is no chemical force on the earth's surface that is more constantly acting, and therefore more powerful in its final consequences, than living organisms taken as a wholeʼʼ. He first counted total mass living matter of the biosphere - 1.8 - 2.5 x 10 15 (in dry weight). At the same time, this value turned out to be somewhat overestimated; it was clarified by the studies of N.I. Bazilevich, L.E. Motherland, N.N. Rozova (1971). As can be seen from Table 1, the main part of the land biomass is made up of green plants (99.2%), and in the ocean - animals (93.7%).

Table 1 - Biomass of the Earth's organisms (according to N.I. Bazilevich et al., 1971)

If living matter is evenly distributed over the surface of our planet, then it will cover it with a layer only 2 cm thick.

The living matter of our planet exists in the form of a huge variety of organisms of various shapes and sizes. Today, there are more than 2 million species of organisms on Earth, of which plants account for about 500 thousand species, and animals account for more than 1.5 million species.

The richest group of organisms on Earth in terms of the number of species is insects, and there are much more of them than other plant and animal species combined (≈ 1,000,000). But there may be more of them, because. most of the insects that live in the tropics have not yet been described.

Among the higher plants, the most common are angiosperms - flowering, numbering about 250 thousand species.

Strictly speaking, the expression ʼʼliving matterʼʼ is unsuccessful. It is used only in the tradition of Vernadsky's works as an equivalent of two more adequate concepts: living matter = totality of living organisms = biota.

Living matter - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Living substance" 2017, 2018.

One of the central links in the concept of the biosphere is the doctrine of living matter. Investigating the processes of migration of atoms in the biosphere, V. I. Vernadsky approached the question of the genesis (origin, occurrence) of chemical elements in the earth's crust, and after that, the need to explain the stability of the compounds that make up organisms. Analyzing the problem of atomic migration, he came to the conclusion that "organic compounds independent of living matter do not exist anywhere." Later, he formulates the concept of “living matter”: “The living matter of the biosphere is the totality of its living organisms ... I will call the totality of organisms, reduced to their weight, chemical composition and energy, living matter.” The main purpose of living matter and its integral attribute is the accumulation of free energy in the biosphere. The usual geochemical energy of living matter is produced primarily through reproduction.

The scientific ideas of V. I. Vernadsky about living matter, about the cosmic nature of life, about the biosphere and its transition to a new quality - the noosphere, have their roots in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when philosophers and natural scientists made the first attempts to comprehend the role and tasks of man in the general evolution of the earth. It was through their efforts that man began his advancement to the heights of the natural evolution of the living, gradually occupying the ecological niche allotted to him by nature.

In the 1930s, V. I. Vernadsky singled out humanity as a special part of the total mass of living matter. This separation of man from all living things became possible for three reasons. First, humanity is not a producer, but a consumer of biogeochemical energy. Such a thesis required a revision of the geochemical functions of living matter in the biosphere. Secondly, the mass of humanity, based on demographic data, is not a constant amount of living matter. And thirdly, its geochemical functions are characterized not by mass, but by production activity. The nature of the assimilation of biogeochemical energy by humanity is determined by the human mind. On the one hand, man is the culmination of unconscious evolution, the “product” of the spontaneous activity of nature, and on the other hand, the initiator of a new, reasonably directed stage of evolution itself.

What characteristics inherent in living matter? First of all, it is a huge free energy. In the process of evolution of species, the biogenic migration of atoms, i.e., the energy of the living matter of the biosphere, has increased many times over and continues to grow, because the living matter recycles the energy of solar radiation, the atomic energy of radioactive decay, and the cosmic energy of scattered elements coming from our Galaxy. Living matter is also characterized by a high rate of chemical reactions compared to non-living matter, where similar processes are thousands and millions of times slower. For example, some caterpillars per day can process food 200 times more than they weigh themselves, and one tit eats as many caterpillars per day as it weighs itself.

It is characteristic of living matter that the chemical compounds that make it up, the most important of which are proteins, are stable only in living organisms. After the completion of the life process, the original living organic substances decompose to chemical constituents. Living matter exists on the planet in the form of a continuous alternation of generations, due to which the newly formed is genetically connected with the living matter of past eras. This is the main structural unit of the biosphere, which determines all other processes on the surface of the earth's crust. Living matter is characterized by the presence of an evolutionary process. The genetic information of any organism is encrypted in each of its cells. V. I. Vernadsky classified living matter into homogeneous and heterogeneous. The first in his view is a generic, specific substance, etc., and the second is represented by natural mixtures of living substances. This is a forest, a swamp, a steppe, that is, a biocenosis. The scientist proposed to characterize living matter on the basis of such quantitative indicators as the chemical composition, the average weight of organisms and the average rate of settlement of the surface of the globe by them.

V. I. Vernadsky cites average figures for the rate of “transfer of life in the biosphere”. The time of capture by this species of the entire surface of our planet in different organisms can be expressed by the following figures (days):

cholera bacteria 1.25

Infusoria 10.6 (maximum)

Diatoms 16.8 (maximum)

Green 166-183 (medium)

plankton

Insects 366

Pisces 2159 (maximum)

Flowering plants 4076

Birds (chickens) 5600-6100

Mammals:

wild pig 37600

elephant indian 376000

Life on our planet exists in non-cellular and cellular forms.

non-cellular form living matter is represented by viruses that are devoid of irritability and their own protein synthesis. The simplest viruses consist only of a protein shell and a DNA or RNA molecule that makes up the core of the virus. Sometimes viruses are isolated into a special kingdom of wildlife - Vira. They can only reproduce inside certain living cells. Viruses are ubiquitous in nature and are a threat to all living things. Settling in the cells of living organisms, they cause their death. About 500 viruses have been described that infect warm-blooded vertebrates, and about 300 viruses that destroy higher plants. More than half of human diseases owe their development to the smallest viruses (they are 100 times smaller than bacteria). These are poliomyelitis, smallpox, influenza, infectious hepatitis, yellow fever, etc.

Cell forms life is represented by prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Prokaryotes include various bacteria. Eukaryotes are all higher animals and plants, as well as unicellular and multicellular algae, fungi and protozoa.