Organization
Biological organisation is the hierarchy of complex biological structures and systems that define life using a reductionistic approach
Body’s largest organ system
Integumentary system, includes skin and its associated structures like hair and nails
Metabolism
The sum of all reactions that take place ensuring the organisms stays alive
2 types of metabolism for sustaining physiological functions:
Exchange of material
Organisms constantly interact with environment by exchanging materials. (eg. CO2 and glucose crossing the plasma membranes, food getting ingested, waste materials getting eliminated)
Responsiveness
Ability of an organism to adjust to changes in its internal and external environment (eg. Increased body temperature in humans will cause the production of sweat and the dilation of blood vessels to cool the body)
Movement
Human movement includes not only actions at the joint of the body, but also the motion of individual organs and individual cells
3 examples of movement in biological organization:
Development
All changes that the body goes through in life, including cell differentiation, growth, and repair
Growth
Increase in body size due to increase in cell size, cell number, or accumulation of non-cellular material
Reproduction
Formation of new organisms from parent organisms
Levels of structural organizations (6):
Chemical level (3):
Cellular level (3):
Organ
Anatomically distinct structure of body composed of two or more types of tissue
Organ system
Group of organs that work together to perform major functions or meet physiological needs of body
Organelles
“Little organ”; Membrane enclosed bodies in a cell that has unique functions - Think of organs in our body, but cells have organelles
Unicellular cell
Organisms composed of a single cell (eg. Bacteria, amoeba, paramecium, yeast)
Multicellular cel
Organisms composed of many cells (plants, animals)
Eukaryotic cell
Organisms whose cells contain a nucleus and other membrane bound organelles
Prokaryotic cell
Organisms that don’t contain any membrane bound organelles and are always part of unicellular organisms
Tissue & organ level (2):
Tissue
Groups of similar cells working together to carry out the same function
Examples of some tissues in animals (4):