Biology in the Modern World

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Biology in the Modern World

• Dr. Heather Townsend
• Chapter 1

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Biology The Study of Living Things
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Living vs. non-living things

• How similar?
• How different?
• How do you classify one or the other?

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Characteristic of Life

• 1. Organized /Order
• 2. Regulation
• 3. Growth and development
• 4. Energy utilization
• 5. Response to environment
• 6. Reproduction
• 7. Evolution

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1. Order

• Complex, but ordered organization

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2. Living things are regulated

• Homeostasis staying the same
• Steady state
• Relatively constant
• Physical and chemical conditions of the
  environment inside the body are maintained

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3. Living things grow and develop

• Growth
• Increase in the size and number of cells
• Development
• All the changes that occur between conception and
  death
• Stages

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4. Living things acquire materials and energy

• Energy
• Capacity to do work
• Our cells and tissues need energy
• How do we acquire energy?

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4. Energy

• Where does energy come from?
• solar energy
• captured self-feeding life forms
• producers
• Photosynthesis
• Humans
• consumers
• Decomposers
• Fungi, bacteria

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5. Living things respond to stimuli

• Dependant on nervous and muscular systems
• Plants track the passage of the sun
• Behavior
• Movement of an organism in response to a stimuli
• Directed toward minimizing injury, acquiring
  food, and reproducing

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6. Living things reproduce

• Life comes from life!
• All life can reproduce
• make another organism like itself
• Asexual reproduction
• Bacteria, protists, and unicellular organisms
• split in two
• Sexual reproduction
• Most multicellular organisms
• union of sperm and egg

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7. Living things are adapted

• Adaptations
• Modifications that make an organism suited to
  life
• Ex Hawks hollow bones
• Come about through evolution
• The process by which a species changes through
  time
• Group of similar organisms that interbreed
• Leads to the diversity of organisms

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Life at its many levels.

• Atom
• Molecule
• Cellular
• Tissue
• Organ
• Organ system
• Organism
• Population
• Community
• Ecosystem
• Biosphere

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Hierarchy of Structural Organization

• Atoms
• Smallest particle that is still an element
• Composed of subatomic particles
• Electrons
• Protons
• Neutrons

Atomic Nucleus
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Hierarchy of Structural Organization

• Chemical level
• Atoms combine to make molecules
• 4 macromolecules in the body
• Carbohydrates
• Lipids
• Proteins
• Nucleic acids

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Hierarchy of Structural Organization

• Cellular
• Cells can be eukaryotic or prokaryotic
• Contain cellular organelles (molecules)
• Structures within cells that perform dedicated
  functions (small organs)

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Hierarchy of Structural Organization

• Tissue
• Collection of cells that work together to perform
  a specialized function
• 4 basic types of tissue in the human body
• Epithelium
• Connective tissue
• Muscle tissue
• Nervous tissue

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Hierarchy of Structural Organization

• Organ
• Made up of tissue
• Heart
• Brain
• Liver
• Pancreas, etc

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Hierarchy of Structural Organization

• Organ system (11)
• Made up of a group of related organs that work
  together
• Integumentary
• Skeletal
• Muscular
• Nervous
• Endocrine
• Cardiovascular
• Lymphatic
• Respiratory
• Digestive
• Urinary
• Reproductive

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Hierarchy of Structural Organization

• Organism
• An individual human, animal, plant, etc
• Made up of organ systems
• Work together to sustain life

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Organization of the Biosphere

• Population
• Each organism is part of a population
• Community
• Populations of different organisms that interact
  with one another
• All species occupy that same area
• Ecosystem
• Created by communities that interact with each
  other
• Biosphere
• Refers to all parts of Earths water, crust, and
  atmosphere

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Ecosystems

• Each organism interacts continuously with its
  environment
• The dynamics of any ecosystem depend on two
  processes
• Cycling of nutrients
• Flow of energy

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Classification of living things

• Taxonomy
• Identifying and classifying organisms according
  to specific criteria
• Each organism placed into a classification system
  

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Taxonomy

• Domain
• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• species

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Domains

• Archae
• Prokaryotes
• Bacteria
• Prokaryotes
• Eukarya
• Eukaryotes

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Kingdoms

• 4 main kingdoms
• Protista
• Fungi
• Plantae
• Animalia

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Scientific Names

• Binomial (two name)
• Genus name, species name
• Examples
• Homo sapiens
• Alligator mississippiensis
• Felis domesticus

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The Process of Science

• The word science is derived from a Latin verb
  meaning to know
• Science is a way of knowing
• Discovery science
• Describing nature
• Hypothesis-driven science
• Explaining nature

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Science

• Uses investigative methods to test hypotheses
  based on previous observations
• Scientific method
• 1. Observe some aspect of the natural world and
  ask questions about it
• 2. Hypothesis
• 3. Make predictions
• 4. Test the predictions
• 5. Repeat the tests or develop new ones
• 6. Analyze and report the test results and
  conclusions

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The Scientific Method
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Why this course?!?!?

• Examine concepts of biology
• Relate these to our everyday lives
• Better understanding of the environment and our
  impacts