Diversity of Living Things

Question 1

What is the Census of Marine Life?

Answer 1

ten year project studying all the marine life worldwide. Involves many countries using the best equipment and biologists. Goal is to study and classify as many species as possible before it is all gone. 2700 scientists worldwide and for every species that’s discovered there’s probably 4 more that haven’t been

Question 2

What is a species?

Answer 2

a group of organisms that can interbreed in nature and produce fertile offspring
~to date scientists have identified about 2 million species on Earth
~total number of species on Earth ranges from 5 million to 20 million

Question 3

What is the biological species concept?

Answer 3

~advantage: this species concept is widely used by scientists
~Disadvantages: if two populations are physically separated (ex. by mountains or water) they never have the opportunity to interbreed in nature. So you can’t tell if they are the same species
~it can’t be applied to organisms that reproduce asexually
~it can’t be applied to fossil species, which are no longer reproducing

Question 4

What is taxonomy?

Answer 4

The branch of biology that identifies names and classifies species
~Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linne) is referred to as the Father of Taxonomy. He created Binomial Nomenclature

Question 5

What is Binomial Nomenclature?

Answer 5

the system of giving a two-word Latin name to each species-the first part is the genus, the second part is the species
~The scientific name is italicized when typed, with the genus name capitalized and the species in lower case. When the scientific name is written by hand, both parts of the name are underlined (two separate lines)

Question 6

What is hierarchical classification?

Answer 6

the method of classifying organisms in which species are arranged in categories is known as a rank. Each of the eight taxonomic categories is known as a rank. The name of each rank is called a taxon (plural:taxa)

Question 7

What are the three main types of evidence in modern taxonomy that allow scientists to determine how much of the evolutionary history two species share?

Answer 7

1) Anatomical
2) Physiological
3) DNA

Question 8

What is anatomical evidence?

Answer 8

the branch of biology that deals with structure and form, including internal systems
Example: dinosaurs and birds:
~both have bones with large hollow spaces
~the arrangement of bones is similar
~scales on legs of birds
the fossil of the remains of Archaeoptryx, an animal from about 150 million years ago had many dinosaur features as well as feathers

-homologous structure: the same bones are found in these four mammals: whale, bat,horse, and human

Question 9

What is physiological evidence?

Answer 9

the branch of biology dealing with the physical and chemical functions of organisms, including internal processes. It also includes the biochemistry of organisms, including the proteins they make
Example: scientists looked at the insulin in Guinea Pigs and discovered that is was too different from the rest of the animals in the order of Rodentia, they had to reclassify Guinea Pigs into a taxon of their own
Example 2: studies of blood proteins in the horseshoe crab have shown that this animal is more closely related to modern spiders than to crabs

Question 10

What is DNA evidence?

Answer 10

Evidence 1: based on analysis of DNA, scientists hypothesize that animals and fungi are more closely related to each other than plants and fungi
Evidence 2: The turkey vulture appears similar to vultures from Asia and Africa but DNA shows turkey vultures may be more closely related to the storks
Evidence 3:humans and chimps share 98% of the same DNA

Question 11

What are the two major cell types?

Answer 11

1) prokaryotic

2) eukaryotic

Question 12

What are prokaryotes?

Answer 12

a smaller, simple type of a cell that does not have a membrane-bound nucleus. It means “before the nucleus”
Example: bacteria and archaea. Primitive

Question 13

What are the eukaryotic?

Answer 13

means “true nucleus”. They are a larger, complex type of cell that does have a membrane-bound nucleus. Can be about 1000 times larger than prokaryotic cells. Have various types of organelles. Example: humans
The four kingdoms: protista, fungi, plantae, animalia are all eukaryotic

Question 14

What is the dichotomous key?

Answer 14

an identification tool consisting of a series of two-part choices that lead the user to a correct identification. Can be used in field guides

Question 15

What is an autotroph?

Answer 15

an organism that captures energy from sunlight (or sometimes non-living substances) to produce its own energy-yielding food
~producer

Question 16

What is a heterotroph?

Answer 16

an organism that cannot make its own food and gets its nutrients and energy from consuming other organisms
~consumer

Question 17

What is species diversity?

Answer 17

the variety of heritable characteristics (genes) in a species
Example 1: Tasmanian Devils suffer from a contagious cancer that causes tumors on the face and mouth of animals, transferred by biting. They live on an island so it is contained on the island
Example 2: the Nene (Hawaiian state bird) were hunted by settlers to make stew–>decrease in population. Then there was a tidal wave that caused another large decrease. Then the mongoose was introduced and they ate Nene eggs–> another large decrease

Question 18

What are the benefits of genetic diversity?

Answer 18

1) provides resistance to disease
~lack of genetic diversity causes humans/species to be more susceptible to diseases than those that have high diversity
~allows populations and species to survive changing environmental conditions (ex. change in resource availability, climate change, a change in predator population, introduction of a non-native species)
2) supports conservation biology

Question 19

What is ecosystem diversity?

Answer 19

The variety of ecosystems in the biosphere

Question 20

What are DNA Bar Codes?

Answer 20

~invented at the university of Guelph and is still ongoing
~a large database of species-specific DNA sequences that can act as tags/markers that can be used to identify unknown biological material
~this could expose market fraud, protect endangered species, monitor the environment and fight diseases