Chapter 1 Flashcards
Biology
scientific study of life
- living things and systems
- multidisciplinary science
- organized discipline
Living things are
-highly ordered/organized
on a structured-hierarchical levels
-use energy to create order
The study of life
extends from the microscopic scale of molecules and cells to the global scale of the entire living planet
The hierarchy of life
Extends through many levels of biological organization and ranges from large and complex (ecosystem) to small and complex (cell)
Biosphere
very large and complex thing (planet, water, all living and non-living things)
Ecosystesms
combo of living and nonliving things living in community (close proximity) to one another
Communities
living things interacting with other living things
Population
more specific organizations
Viruses
not living
Hierarchy of life
biosphere -> ecosystems -> communities -> populations -> organisms -> organs/organ systems -> tissues -> cells -> organelles -> molecules (-> atoms)
Dynamics of an ecosystem
1) Cycling of nutrients
in which materials acquired by plants eventually return to the soil
2) Flow of energy
from sunlight to producers and then to consumers
(starts with the sun)
sunlight -> chemical energy -> stored -> another organism eat plant
-sunlight excites e- in plant, generating energy
-plants can also make macromolecules are high e-(fat, protein, sugar)
Cell
- simplest living thing
- lowest level of organization that can perform all activities required for life
- can duplicate genetic material (reproduction)
- all enclosed by a membrane
- all use DNA as genetic information
Cell Heritable information
Cells contain chromosomes made partly of DNA, the substance of genes,
-which program the cells’ production of proteins and transmit information from parents to offspring
DNA heredity
- substance of heredity
- most of what we see are protein
- How is DNA converted into protein?
Biological Systems
- more than the sum of their parts
- complicated
four key ingredients of life:
sugar, protein, DNA (nucleotide), fat
System
a combination of components that form a more complex organization
Due to increasing complexity
new properties emerge with each step upward in the hierarchy of biological order
Reductionism
involves reducing complex systems to simpler components that are more manageable to study
-“take things apart”
virus
nonliving thing
- cannot reproduce on its own
- don’t do metabolism
features of “life”
1) Highly Ordered
2) Adaptation - change/modify behavior
3) Responding to environment
4) Reproduction
5) Regulation (i.e. blood flow)
6) Energy/Metabolism
7) Grow and Development
The study of DNA structure is an example of reductionism that has led to further study of …
heredity,
- such as the Human Genome Project
- DNA code for humans, have about 25-30 thousand genes
3 domains (claids) that life is classified into
1) bacteria
2) archaea
3) eukarya
Humans are a part of which domain?
eukarya
cell have a nucleus
