In this video, we're going to talk about the scientific naming of organisms. In the 1700s, a scientist by the name of Carl Linnaeus developed a binomial, or a two-part naming system for microorganisms. This naming system that Carl Linnaeus developed is a Latin-based system, and it has two parts. The first part of this Latin-based naming system indicates the genus of the particular organism. This first part or the genus of the organism is always going to have a first letter that is capitalized. Now the second part of this naming system is going to indicate the species of the organism, and this second part or the species is always going to have a first letter that is not capitalized. We'll be able to see some examples of this down below in our image. It's important to note that both the first and second parts of the naming system are going to be either italicized or underlined. We will also be able to see this down below in our image.
Members of the same species may vary from one another. These members of the same species that vary from one another genetically in minor ways, they form what are known as strains, different strains of that species. Strains can be defined as genetic variances within a given species, and these strains can be designated or indicated with a strain designation. We'll show you some examples of this down below in our image.
If we take a look at this image down below, notice that up here in the top we're showing you the scientific naming system that Carl Linnaeus had developed. It's a binomial naming system or a two-part naming system that consists of the genus and the species. Notice that the genus is going to have a capital first letter, whereas the species is not going to have a capitalized first letter. Notice that both the genus and the species are italicized or underlined. If we take a look at these examples down below, notice that the genus for each of these is in this bluish color and has a capitalized first letter. The species is going to be in the reddish color and the species does not have a capitalized first letter. Notice that both the genus and the species are going to be italicized or underlined. Here in this example, all of them are italicized. This one over here on the far left is a specific bacterium known as Borrelia burgdorferi. Here we have a specific type of fungi called Saccharomyces cerevisiae, then we have Streptococcus pyogenes here, another type of bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, another type of bacterium, and over here on the far right Escherichia coli, another type of bacterium. You can see that we've provided some images of these different organisms along with their scientific names.
Again, within each of these different types of organisms, there are going to be different strains. Over here on the far right-hand side, we're showing you some examples of different strains of Escherichia coli or E. coli for short. Notice that we have Escherichia coli K-12, which is a different strain than Escherichia coli B. All of these that you see down here are different strains of Escherichia coli. We have enteropathogenic Escherichia coli, enterotoxigenic, enteroaggregative, and enteroinvasive Escherichia coli. These are just some of the different strains of E. coli, as there are many, many more that exist. Each of these different strains of E. coli is designated with a strain designation such as K-12 or B, or one of these other words upfront.
This here concludes our introduction to the scientific naming of organisms, and we'll be able to get some practice applying these concepts as we move forward in our course. So, I'll see you all in our next video.
