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Studying Life. 1 Studying Life. 1.1 What Is Biology? 1.2 How Do Biologists Investigate Life? 1.3 Why Does Biology Matter?. 1 Studying Life. More than one-third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction.
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1 Studying Life • 1.1 What Is Biology? • 1.2 How Do Biologists Investigate Life? • 1.3 Why Does Biology Matter?
1 Studying Life • More than one-third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction. • Tyrone Hayes studies one of the threats to amphibians—agricultural pesticides such as atrazine, which impact breeding and reproduction. Opening Question: Could atrazine in the environment affect species other than amphibians?
1.1 What Is Biology? • Biology is the scientific study of living things (organisms). • Living things are all descended from a common origin of life that occurred almost 4 billion years ago.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Characteristics of living organisms: • Made of a common set of chemical components: carbohydrates, fatty acids, nucleic acids, amino acids • Most are made of cells enclosed by plasma membranes • Convert molecules from their environment into new biological molecules
1.1 What Is Biology? • Extract energy from the environment and use it to do biological work • Contain genetic information that uses a universal code to specify proteins • Share similarities among a fundamental set of genes, and replicate this genetic information when reproducing
1.1 What Is Biology? • Exist in populations that evolve through changes in frequencies of genetic variants over time • Self-regulate their internal environment, maintaining conditions that allow them to survive
1.1 What Is Biology? • The diverse organisms alive today all originated from one life form. • If life had multiple origins, we would not expect to see such striking similarities in gene sequences, genetic code, and amino acids.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Earth formed 4.6 to 4.5 billion years ago but it was 600 million years or more before life evolved. • The history of Earth can be pictured as a 30-day month.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Complex biological molecules probably arose through random physical associations of chemicals. • Experiments simulating conditions on early Earth show that this is possible, and even probable.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Nucleic acids were essential— molecules that could reproduce themselves and serve as templates for synthesis of proteins. • Another step was enclosure of biological molecules by membranes. This created an internal environment in which reactions could be controlled and integrated.
1.1 What Is Biology? • For 2 billion years, life consisted of single cells called prokaryotes. • The two main groups of prokaryotes emerged early: bacteria and archaea.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Some early prokaryotes began to live in close, interdependent relationships and eventually merged to form a third major lineage of life, the eukaryotes. • Eukaryotic cells have internal membranes that enclose specialized organelles within their cells, including the nucleus, which contains the genetic material.
1.1 What Is Biology? • At some point, eukaryotic cells did not separate after division and started living as colonies. • This opened the way for some cells to specialize for certain functions, which led to multicellular organisms.
1.1 What Is Biology? • About 2.5 billion years ago, photosynthesis changed the nature of life on Earth. • This process transforms sunlight energy into biological energy. • Photosynthesis is the basis of most of life on Earth; it provides food for other organisms.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Early photosynthetic cells were probably similar to cyanobacteria(prokaryotes). • The atmosphere of early Earth had no O2, but it began to increase as photosynthetic prokaryotes increased. • Organisms that could tolerate O2 proliferated.
Figure 1.4 Photosynthetic Organisms Changed Earth’s Atmosphere
1.1 What Is Biology? • Abundant O2 opened up new avenues of evolution because aerobic metabolism is more efficient than anaerobic metabolism and allows organisms to grow larger.
1.1 What Is Biology? • O2 in the atmosphere also allowed life to move onto land. • Accumulating O2 led to formation of the ozone (O3) layer, which absorbs damaging UV radiation. • By 500 million years ago, there was enough ozone for organisms to leave the protection of the water.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Genome: the sum total of all the DNA in a cell. • DNA consists of repeating subunits called nucleotides. • Gene: a specific segment of DNA that contains information for making a protein.
1.1 What Is Biology? • All the cells of a multicellular organism have the same genome, yet different cells have different functions and structures. • Different cells are expressing different parts of the genome.
1.1 What Is Biology? • The genome must be replicated when cells reproduce. • The process is not perfect; errors are called mutations. • Discovery of DNA and how it functions transformed biological science.
1.1 What Is Biology? • A population is a group of individuals of the same type of organism—the same species—that interact with one another. • Evolution acts on populations; it is change in the genetic makeup of populations through time.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Evolution is the major unifying principle of biology. • Charles Darwin compiled factual evidence for evolution. • He argued that differential survival and reproduction among individuals in a population (natural selection) could account for much of the evolution of life.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Darwin proposed that all organisms are descended from a common ancestor. • Some mutations give rise to changes in organisms; genetic variants may change in frequency in the population —the population evolves.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Darwin knew that humans select for specific traits in domesticated animals (artificial selection); the same process could operate in nature (natural selection). • Only a small percentage of an individual’s offspring survive to reproduce; thus traits that confer an increase in the probability of survival and reproduction will spread in the population.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Natural selection leads to adaptations: structural, physiological, or behavioral traits that enhance an organism’s chances of survival and reproduction.
1.1 What Is Biology? • As populations become isolated and evolve differences, they are eventually considered different species. • Species that share a recent evolutionary history are generally more similar to each other than species that share a more distant ancestor.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Each species has a distinct scientific name, a binomial: • Genus name – species name • Example: Homo sapiens • A genus is a group of species that share a recent common ancestor.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Our understanding of evolutionary relationships has been greatly enhanced by molecular techniques such as the ability to sequence genomes. • A phylogenetic tree illustrates the evolutionary histories of different groups of organisms.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Three domains of life: • Bacteria (prokaryotes) • Archaea (prokaryotes) • Eukarya(eukaryotes)
1.1 What Is Biology? • For more than half of Earth’s history, all life was unicellular. Unicellular species remain ubiquitous and highly successful in the present. • Multicellular Eukarya (plants, animals, and fungi) evolved from protists—unicellular microbial eukaryotes.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Cells became specialized in multicellular organisms; a biological hierarchy emerged: • Differentiated cells are organized into tissues. Different tissue types form organs (e.g., a heart); and organs are grouped into organ systems.
Figure 1.8 Biology Is Studied at Many Levels of Organization (1)
1.1 What Is Biology? • A group of individuals of the same species is a population. • Populations of all the species that live and interact in a defined area are called a community. • Communities together with their abiotic (nonliving) environment constitute an ecosystem.
Figure 1.8 Biology Is Studied at Many Levels of Organization (2)
1.1 What Is Biology? • Individuals may compete with each other for resources; • Or they may cooperate (e.g., in a termite colony). • Plants also compete for light and water, and many form complex partnerships with fungi, bacteria, and animals.
1.1 What Is Biology? • The interactions of plant and animal species are major evolutionary forces that produce specialized adaptations. • Species interactions with one another and with their environment is the subject of ecology.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Organisms acquire nutrients from their environment. • Nutrients supply energy and materials for biochemical reactions. • Some reactions break nutrient molecules into smaller units, releasing energy for work.
1.1 What Is Biology? • Examples of cellular work: • Movement of molecules or the whole organism • Synthesis—building new complex molecules from smaller chemical units • Electrical work of information processing in nervous systems
1.1 What Is Biology? • Organisms must regulate their internal environment, made up of extracellular fluids. • Maintenance of the narrow range of conditions that support survival is known as homeostasis.
1.2 How Do Biologists Investigate Life? • Scientific investigations are based on observation, data, experimentation, and logic. • Observation has been improved by new technologies. • Information, or data, must be quantified using mathematical and statistical methods.