Unit 3: Animal Biology Flashcards
What are the 5 core concepts of biology as they relate to animal development and physiology?
- Structure and function
- Evolution
- Systems
- Information flow
- Transformations of energy and matter
What factors make an animal (5 key points discussed)
- Multicellular
- heterotrophic: must obtain nutrients from other organisms
- lack cell walls
- capable of movement at one point in life stage
- Possess regulatory hox genes (all have same genes)
Is a sponge considered an animal? Why?
- yes since it agrees with all requirements for an animal
- can move at the larval stage
What functions do animals need?
- reproductive/development
- obtain matter and energy / transport it
- gas exchange (breathing)
- protection from external environment
- maintain water/solute concentration
- support/ movement
- coordination of body functions
How does structure relate to function?
Structure can enable or constrain function
How does structure enable function?
- a structures physical and chemical characteristics influence its interactions with other structures, and therefore its function
How does structure constrain function?
- functional tradeoffs
- specialization for one function may limit a structure’s ability to perform another function
- it is impossible to optimize for all parameters
What are the two forms of tradeoff?
- functional tradeoffs
- resource tradeoffs
What is evolution?
- through natural selection organisms become adapted to their environment
- structures make sense in the context of the animal’s environment
What is the hierarchal organization of structures?
molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms
How do biological structures interact? How might one change in one component of a network impact other components?
- interact to form complex systems
- a change can affect other components
eg: issues with cell can cause deflation of cartilage = mobility issues
What are emergent properties?
- each level of organization has properties exhibited by lower levels
- these are properties that exist due to many different components working together
eg: Structure –> emergent property: cell –> life
Provide an example of an emergent property
- cardiac muscle contracts
- cardiac muscle + tissue = heart (organ) = coordinated pumps
- heart + blood + vessels = circulatory system –> delivers O2
= rewrites all different components to deliver O2 throughout the body
What does exchange of materials look like for a structurally simple animal?
- some animals structurally simple enough that all cells are in direct contact with external environment
- don’t need systems for exchange - does it alone
What does exchange of materials look like in more complicated bodies ?
complicated bodies require organ systems that
- can exchange material with external environment
- can transport material around body
What are the systems which allow for exchanging of materials in complex systems? For transport?
- digestive system, excretory, reparatory, integumentary
- circulatory system transports material throughout
How do animals respond to changes in internal and external environments?
- animals have systems that perceive and respond to changes in internal and external environments
- all perception and response requires information flow
What is communication in terms of information flow in animals?
- perception and response requires information flow
How does communication occur?
What are these systems called?
chemical and/or electrical signalling between cells coordinates responses at cellular, tissue, organ, and system levels
- called endocrine and nervous systems that control response to stimuli/coordinate body activities
What is homeostasis?
- Why are stable environments important?
- the maintenance of a relatively stable internal environment (systems help maintain this)
- cells have conditions under which they function optimally, enzymes/membranes sensitive to changes in surroundings
Which feedback system does homeostasis rely on?
- negative feedback: control mechanism in which response opposes original stimulus
What is transformational energy?
- regulate changes in asset points and normal ranges of physiological parameters essential to normal body functions
What are some examples of regulated changes?
- stages of life, cyclic, response to environmental change
Where do animals get their energy?
Food:
- chemical energy = sugars, fats, proteins, energy stored in bonds
- molecular building blocks (eg: amino acids)
What energy ‘currency unit’ do animals use in their body?
- stood chemical energy is converted to ATP
- also stores energy within bonds
- needed to carry out cellular work necessary for physiological activities
how does natural selection favour efficient use of resources?
- organisms have limited energy and material resources
- requires efficient allocation across competing functional demands
- resource trade-offs
What are resource tradeoffs?
natural sleeting favours efficient use of resources, requires specific allocation of energy. May need to give one thing up in order to do another
eg: wound healing vs. egg protection
What are the 3 embryonic stages ?
- cleavage
- blastula
- gastrulation
What is the foundation of diverse cell types and behaviours seen in development? In other words, how can cells which possess the same genomes look and behave differently?
Differential gene expression
Why are model organisms broadly representative?
- developmental genes and mechanisms are very similar across animal species
- therefore studying development in model organisms provides knowledge about development in general
What is the relationship between genes of drosophila and humans?
- have similar genes that perform similar functions
What is fertilization?
- haploid gametes (n) join to form diploid zygote (2n)
Describe the steps of fertilization in sea urchins
1) sperm and egg are haploid gametes
2) contact with jelly cat triggers acrosomal reaction
3)surface repotting on acrosomal process binds to receptors on egg cells membranes
4) plasma membranes fuse triggering fast block to polyspermy
5) sperm nucleus enters and cortical reaction causes slow block to polyspermy
6) fusion of sperm and egg nuclei form the diploid nucleus of zygote
What is an acrosomal reaction?
- surface proteins on acrosomal process binds to receptors on egg cell membrane - triggers fast block
What is cleavage?
- the process by which zygote becomes multicellular
- rapid cell division with little growth of cells
What stages of mitosis does cleavage skip? Why?
- skips G1 and G2 phase for rapid division with little growth
What is developed from cleavage?
- results in many smaller cells called blastomeres (become blastula)
- cells get smaller with each round of division
- no growth of cells between divisions
What is the blastula?
- developed from blastomeres
- hollow ball of cells with a fluid filled cavity called the blastocoel
What is differential gene expression?
- cells express different genes depending on their location and stage development
- expressing different genes leads to the production of different proteins which determine structure/behaviour
What do the different proteins formed from differential gene expression do?
- determine structure and behaviour of cell at any given time (allows for different traits despite having same genomes)
What are the two mechanisms which allow genes to know what genes to express at a given time?
- 1) cytoplasmic determinants - signal comes form within the cell
2) inductive signals - signal comes from outside the cell
What are cytoplasmic determinants ?
- molecules within cytoplasms regulates gene expression
- can be differentially distributed to daughter cells resulting in differences in gene expression
What mechanism is responsible for an asymmetric cell division?
- cytoplasmic determinants
What are inductive signals?
- signal molecules a cell is exposed to depend on its location within the embryo and the stage of development
- as cell develops different conditions allow it to express different traits
What is morphogenesis?
- rearrangement of cells r sheets of cells in the embryos
What is gastrulation?
- stage when 3 germ layers are established, and basic body plan is set up
What is organogenesis? Provide and example
- the formation of the organs
- neurolation ; formation of the nervous system
What are the 3 layers formed from castellation called?
ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm
What are the steps of frog gastrulation?
- Cells in vegetal hemisphere push inward
- outer cells (future endoderm and mesoderm) roll inward
- Blastocoel collapses and new cavity - archenteron - is formed
- cells at animal pole (future ectoderm) spread over the outer surface
What forms the endoderm and mesoderm?
- the outer cells of blastula which roll inward
What is the archenteron?
- when the blastocoel collapses the new cavity archenteron is formed
How is morphogenesis achieved?
- achieved through changes in cell position, shape, and survival
What is convergent expression?
- example of cells changing position
- produces a longer, narrower structure
Know the formation of the neural tube (review diagram)
- how is the neural tube formed?
- ectodermal cells change shape during neural tube formation
what is programmed cell death’s role?
- also shapes embryos
- fluorescing cells are undergoing apoptosis eg: removal of webbing between digits
What is apoptosis?
the death of cells which occurs as a normal and controlled part of an organism’s growth or development.
What animals are best to model development?
list one reason why either one of these is effective
Frogs and urchins
- urchins have transparent, external eggs
What are the parts of the blastula?
- formed from blastomeres, doesn’t change size from og. zygote
- has animal pole and vegetal pole
- animal pole is the ‘top’ where the stem enters, has smaller cells than the vegetal side
- also contains blastocoel- a fluid filled cavity
What are the 3 kinds of morphogenesis?
1) Gastrulation
2) organogenesis
3) programmed cell death
True or False: Endodermal cells express different genes than ectodermal cells
True! Despite having the same genes, they express them differently depending on different determinants (cytoplasmic determinants and inductive signals)
What are the roles of the nervous and endocrine system?
- major systems that control responses to stimuli and coordinate body functions and maintain homeostasis
What are the characteristics of the endocrine system?
- hormonal signal type
- blood transmission
- speed = fast/slow
- specificity is achieved by hormone/receptor interaction (target cells have receptor proteins)
- single travels everywhere in body
What are the characteristics of the nervous systems?
- electrical impulse and chemical neurotransmitter signal
- neuron transmission
- very fast
- short duration
- specificity is achieved by close connection of neuron’s and target cells (eg: neutrons, muscle, endocrine cells)
- travels to specific location
What is the endocrine system for?
- specialized for coordinating gradual changes that effect the entire body
eg: growth and development, reproduction, metabolic progresses, digestion
What is the nervous system?
- specialized for directing immediate and rapid response to the environment
eg: rapid locomotion and behaviour
What are nervous systems composed of ?
- neurons and glia
What are neutrons?
cells responsible for generating and transmitting electrochemical impulses of the nervous systems
What are glia?
- cells that maintain homeostasis
- form myelin, nourish, and provide support and protection for neurone in the central and peripheral nervous systems
What are the main parts of the nervous system ?
- dendrites, axon, nucleus, synapse : neurotransmitter, synaptic terminal
- presynaptic cell, post synaptic cell
What are the steps of communication through the nervous system?
1) electrical impulses are triggered at dendrites
2) with sufficient stimulus to cell body, a new electrical impulse is generated and send down axon
3) neurotransmitter is released and crosses the synapse to bind to receptors on the post synaptic cell
What forms the central nervous system?
- brain and spinal cord
What dorms the peripheral nervous system?
- cranial ner es, ganglia, spinal nerves
What are the 3 stages of information processing ?
1) sensory input
2) integration (central nervous system)
3) motor output (peripheral nervous system) –> effector
What are the 3 neurons?
- sensory nurons, interneuron, motoneuron
What do endocrine cells do?
- endocrine cells secrete hormones into the bloodstream, affecting target cells to regulate physiology and behaviour
What parts of the body produce hormones?
which are the two major endocrine glands?
- organs produce hormones
- major endocrine glands: hypothalamus, pituitary gland
What is the hypothalamus?
- a brain region that acts as the “master regulator” of the endocrine system primarily through the pituitary gland
What are the parts of the hypothalamus?
hypothalamus, posterior pituitary, anterior pituitary
Wha is the posterior pituitary?
- made up of axons of neurosecretory cells of the hypothalamus
What are neurosecretory cells?
- neurosecretory cell is a neuron that produces a hormone and secretes it into the bloodstream
- functional overlap between nervous and endocrine system
What system is an overlap between nervous and endocrine system?
- the posterior pituitary
What is the anterior pituitary?
- made up of endocrine cells that respond to hormones from the hypothalamus by secreting their own hormones
- hypothalamic hormones arrive via portal vessels
How do hypothalamic hormones arrive?
via portal vessels
What regulates other endocrine glands?
- hormones from the posterior and anterior pituitary glands
What is the hierarchal organization of hormone secretion?
hypothalamus – > posterior/pituitary glands –> other endocrine glands eg: thyroid, adrenals, testes, ovules
What systems do the fight or flight systems require?
- requires nervous and endocrine systems
What controls the connection between nervous and endocrine systems?
- the hypothalamus
How does the hypothalamus affect fight or flight?
- hypothalamus affects endocrine system without pituitary - via spine and then adrenal glands
What are some effects of hormones?
- increased heart rate
- breathing rate
-metabolic rate - blood glucose
- change in blood flow pathogen
What does it mean for hormones to differ in structure and solubility?
- a single hormone can produce different effects in different cells
- response of a target cell to a hormone depend on - signalling pathways within target cell
- the type of receptor on target cells
What is the difference between water soluble and insoluble hormones?
- water soluble passes through membrane (from secretory cell)
- water insoluble requires proteins/receptors
How do endocrine systems maintain homeostasis?
- endocrine systems often use antagonistic hormones to maintain homeostasis
What are antagonistic hormones?
- Pairs of hormones whose actions oppose each other
- maintain a physiological parameter within an acceptable range
- ex: insulin and glucagon regulate blood glucose concentration
what hormones does the adrenal gland secrete?
- epinephrine and norepinephrine
Describe the negative feedback loop of blood glucose
too low = alpha cells of pancreas releases glucagon = live breaks down glycogen, release glucose = blood glucose increases = homeostasis!
Too high = beta cells in pancreas releases insulin = liver removes glucose from blood, stores it as glycogen = blood glucose decreases = homeostasis
What is bioenergetics?
The overall flow and transformation of energy within an organism
What determines how much energy an animal needs?
- metabolic rate
What is the metabolic rate?
- the amount of energy used per unit time
What is the basal metabolic rate?
BMR is the metabolic rate of a non-grown endotherm (Warm blooded animal) that is at rest, with an empty digestive tract, and not experiencing stress
ie: the minimum amount of energy to maintain basic functions
What determines metabolic rate?
- many factors: sex, age, size, temperature, nutrition
- primaries: activity level, body mass,
Does a smaller or larger animal have a greater metabolic rate?
- smaller animals have higher metabolic rate (more activity, larger animals use energy more efficiently)
What must an animal’s diet do?
- must supply energy, organic molecules, and essential nutrients
What is chemical energy in food used for?
- used in cellular respiration to produce ATP or is stored
Why are organic molecules needed?
- needed for biosynthesis of nucleic acids, carbohydrates, proteins, lipids
What are essential nutrients? from an animals diet?
- essential amnio acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals
What are the 4 stages of food processing?
- Ingestion : mechanical ingestion
- Digestion: chemical digestion = enzymatic hydrolysis
- Absorption: nutrient molecules enter body cells
- Elimination: undigested material
Why are the structures associated with ingestion the most diverse?
- various diets
what are the 4 main feeding mechanisms?
- suspension/filter feeders
- substrate feeders
- fluid feeders
-bulk feeders
What are the components of the digestive system? What is it for?
- alimentary canal + accessory organs
- specialized for sequential stages of food processing