Week 1 (Ch 1-2) Flashcards
Chapters 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 2.1, 2.2
Organism
An individual living entity that grows and reproduces as an independent unit.
Nucleic Acids
A polymer made up of nucleotides specialized for the storage, transmission, and expression of genetic information.
Cell
The simplest structural unit of a living organism. In multicellular organisms, many individual cells serve as the building blocks of tissues and organs.
Prokaryotes
Unicellular organisms without a nucleus, including bacteria and prokaryotic archeans.
Tissues
A group of similar cells organized into a functional unit. Usually integrated with other tissues to form part of an organ.
Organs
A body part that is composed of two or more tissues integrated to perform a distinct function.
Organ Systems
An interrelated and integrated group of tissues and organs that work together in a physiological function.
Ecological Systems
(Ecosystems)
One or more organisms and the abiotic and biotic environment with which they interact.
Populations
A group of individuals of the same species that live, interact, and reproduce together in a particular geographic area.
Communities
The assemblage of interacting individuals of different species within a particular geographic area.
Landscapes
An ecological system consisting of multiple ecological communities within a geographic are larger than the area occupied by a single community.
Biosphere
The region that supports living organisms on Earth, extending about 23 kilometers from the depths of the ocean to the stratosphere.
System
A set of interacting parts in which neither the parts nor the whole can be understood without taking into account the interactions among the parts.
Components
The interacting parts of a biological system.
Processes
The ways in which components in a biological system interact.
Dynamic
Characterized by activity or change.
Feedback
Information about the relationship between the set point of the system and its current state.
Positive Feedback
A type of control that acts to increase differences that arise between the level of a controlled variable and its set-point level.
The period of amplifying deviation is followed by a period in which stabilization is restored in most biological systems.
Negative Feedback
A type of control that acts to reduce differences that arise between the level of a controllable variable and its set-point level.
It tends to stabilize the controlled variable at a level close to the set-point level.
Regulatory Systems
A system that uses feedback information to maintain a physiological function or parameter at an optimal level.
Systems Analysis
A process in which the parts or components of a biological system are identified and the processes by which the components interact are specified.
Equilibrium
The state of a system in which there is no net change through time.
Computational Model
A description of a system in which the interactions among components are expressed as mathematical functions that can be used to predict and understand the observable characteristics of the system.
Nucleotides
A nucleoside containing 1-3 phosphate groups. The building blocks of nucleic acids and important co-enzymes (especially ATP).
DNA
(Deoxyribonucleic Acid)
The fundamental hereditary material of all living organisms.
In eukaryotes, it is stored primarily in the cell nucleus.
Proteins
A compound consisting of one or more polypeptides. Occurs within its polypeptide chains extended in fibrous proteins, or coiled into a compact macromolecule in enzymes and other globular proteins.
Gene
A unit of heredity.
A unit of genetic function which carries the information for a polypeptide or RNA.
Evolution
Any gradual change.
Most often refers to organic or Darwinian evolution which is the genetic and resulting phenotypic change in populations of organisms from generation to generation.