INTRODUCTION
What is the definition of Biology?
Study of living things or making questions about how living things interact in the environment.
Basic and fundamental unit of life
The Cell
What is the study of taxonomy?
the science of classifying organisms
The even distribution of a species in an area
Evenness
Give an example of a objective observation and a subjective observation
Something based on fact and something based on opinion or personal feeling
What are the two major theories in biology? Describe them.
Cell theory, Theory of evolution
All cells are fundamental part of life and all cells come from other cells
evolution is the source of biodiversity and species change and diverge overtime
Define homeostasis.
Keeping internal conditions stable or in balance.
What is the difference between homologous traits/structures and analogous traits/structures?
Homologous when it relates to taxonomy refers to two structures that are similar, while analogous structures are similar in function and appearance, but do not share an origin in a common ancestor.
An impactful species with low abundance
Keystone species
What is the difference between precision and accuracy?
Accuracy refers to how close a measurement is to the true or accepted value. Precision refers to how close measurements of the same item are to each other.
Which two sciences does Biology apply their laws to living things?
Physics and Chemistry
Describe the process of eutrophication.
Harmful algal blooms, dead zones, and fish kills are the results the environment becoming too enriched with nutrients, increasing the amount of plant and algae growth to estuaries and coastal waters.
Describe ancestral traits and derived traits
ancestral trait: a characteristic on an organism that is shared with a distant ancestor and from a different clade
derived trait: a characteristic on an organism that recently showed up
Describe the species-area relationship.
The rate at which new species are seen when the area surveyed is increased (
- Abstract gives a brief summary of the research paper
- Introduction gives a background about what you are researching and introduces past research
- Materials describes what was used in the study
- Methods how was it used? how did you get your data?
- results
- Discussion explaining your results and what they mean
Name a practical and a theoretical area of biology.
Practical: Plant breeding, Wildlife management, Medical science and Crop production.
Theoretical: Physiology, Biochemistry, Taxonomy, Ecology and Microbiology.
Define the following: Standard deviation, mean, independent variable, dependent variable, null hypothesis, and alternative hypothesis
Standard deviation
Mean: The average of a data set. Acquired by adding up all data point and dividing by the amount of numbers there are.
IV: The variable that you have control over and is used to manipulate the dependent variable (x-axis)
DV: What is being measured in an experiment (y-axis)
Alternative hypothesis: There is a difference between two groups
null hypothesis: There is no difference between two groups
Paedomorphism is....
the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood
Describe what ecosystem services are and give an example.
The human benefits provided by natural ecosystems.
waterways as drinking source, pollinators, ability to grow crops
Give an example of a model for Data Collection.
Controlled Experiments
Experimental Design
Data Gathering
Investigations
Who were the main scientists that began promoting the universal ideas of The Cell Theory.
Schleiden and Schwann
Enlist the 9 Characteristics of living things.
Homeostasis: Living things maintain a stable internal environment
Who is Alfred Wallace?
Helped develop the theory of natural selection - species evolve by adapting to their environment. Collaborated with Charles Darwin to develop theories of evolution and natural selection.
Describe how thermodynamics relates to ecosystem structure and function. (Laws 1 and 2 should be mentioned)
Thermodynamics explains how energy is distributed throughout the structure of ecosystems. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. This is seen as energy moves through the trophic levels of producers and consumers. Energy is captured, transferred, and lost to heat. Producers capture energy by sunlight then transfer it from one trophic level to the next, but energy is lost as heat as it moves through. This is described as entropy in the second law of thermodynamics. These laws explain the distribution of species as well as their abundance in ecosystems.
What does "peer-reviewed" journal mean?
Scholarly work reviewed by experts in the same field.