BIOL 2117: Microbiology: Classifying and Identifying Microorganisms

Classifying and Identifying Microorganisms

The scientific term for classifying living things is known as taxonomy. Taxonomy involves the following three terms:

• Nomenclature (naming) is the assignment of scientific names to the various taxonomic categories and to individual organisms.
• Classification is the orderly arrangement of organisms into a hierarchy.
• Identification is the process of discovering and recording the traits of organisms so that they may be recognized or named and placed in an overall taxonomic scheme.

All microorganisms are classified into the three domains of life: Archaea, Bacteria (prokaryotes), and Eukarya except for viruses which are acellular in nature.

Integrated Taxonomic Information System

Welcome to ITIS, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System! Here you will find authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.

Explore the Tree of Life

LPSN - List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature

ION: Index to Organism Names

Listing the World’s Algae

AlgaeBase is a global algal database of taxonomic, nomenclatural and distributional information.

GBIF

Free and open access to biodiversity data

Global Catalogue of Microorganisms

Index Fungorum

Identification and Classification of Microorganisms

Microorganism Taxonomy and Organism Classification 

Classification of microorganism

Chapter 1 - Classification and pathogenicity of microbes

Classification of Microorganisms

Microbiology of Overall Classification of Microbes

Classification, identification and typing of micro-organisms

Universal Virus Database of the Intl. Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses

For virus taxonomy, use this site.

What are Microbes?

Methods of Classifying and Identifying Microorganisms