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BIOL1130 > Module 1 - Diversity > Flashcards

Module 1 - Diversity Flashcards

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1
Q

In order to maintain an organised body structure, all organisms need an input of?

A

Energy

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2
Q

Example of descriptive biology?

A
  • Sequencing of the human genome
  • Doesn’t involve the testing of hypothesis
  • Describing something as completely as they can
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3
Q

Populations of a single species that are quite distinct from one another phenotypically may be connected by populations that have which characteristics?

A

Intermediate phenotypes

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4
Q

What is a species?

A

A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding.

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5
Q

What is a population?

A

A group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area.

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6
Q

What is a community?

A

A group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.

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7
Q

What is the biological species concept?

A
  • The idea that individuals of a species have the ability to interbreed with each other and exchange genes
  • Defines a species as a group of individuals that can interbreed, producing viable and fertile offspring.
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8
Q

What is cellular organisation?

A

All organisms consist of one or more cells, each bounded by a membrane that separates it from its surroundings.

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9
Q

What is ordered complexity?

A

All living things are both complex and highly ordered.

Eg. Humans are composed of many different kinds of cells, containing many complex molecular structures.

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10
Q

What is sensitivity in organisms?

A

All organisms respond to stimuli.

Eg. Plants grow towards a source of light, our pupils dilate when we walk into a dark room.

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11
Q

What does growth, development, and reproduction in organisms entail?

A

All organisms are capable of growing and reproducing, possessing hereditary molecules passed to their offspring ensuring they are of the same species.

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12
Q

What is energy utilisation in organisms?

A

All organisms take in energy and use it to perform work.

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13
Q

What is homeostasis?

A
  • The maintenance of a relatively stable internal physiological environment in an organism.
  • All organisms maintain relatively constant internal conditions that differ from their environment, a process called homeostasis.

Eg. Body temperature remains stable despite changes in outdoor temperature.

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14
Q

What is evolutionary adaptation?

A

All organisms interact with other organisms and the nonliving environment in ways that influence their survival, leading to adaptations to their environments.

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15
Q

What is hierarchical organisation?

A

Atoms form molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, organs, systems, organisms.

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16
Q

What is the population level in ecology?

A

Population, species, community, ecosystem, biosphere.

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17
Q

What are novel properties in biology?

A

Properties that cannot be deduced solely from knowledge of the individual components.

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18
Q

What are the five core concepts of biology?

A

1.) Life is subject to chemical and physical laws
2.) Structure determines function
3.) Living systems transform energy and matter
4.) Living systems depend on information transactions
5.) Evolution explains the unity and diversity of life.

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19
Q

What does it mean that life is subject to chemical and physical laws?

A

Atomic structure, chemical bonding, thermodynamics, kinetics.

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20
Q

What does structure determines function mean?

A

The proper functioning of molecules, cells, and tissues and organs depends on their structure.

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21
Q

What does living systems transform energy and matter mean?

A
  • Life is to constantly transform both energy and matter.
  • All energy transformations are inefficient.
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22
Q

What does evolution explain about the unity and diversity of life?

A
  • All organisms alive today descended from a simple cellular organism that arose 3.5 billion years ago.
  • The storage of hereditary information in DNA is common to all living things.
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23
Q

What must species account for?

A

1.) The distinctiveness of species that occur together at a single locality
2.) The connection that exists among different populations belonging to the same species.

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24
Q

What is the flow of energy in ecosystems?

A
  • Energy never recycles; instead, radiant energy from the sun makes a ‘one-way pass’ through ecosystems before being converted to heat and radiated back into space.
  • Energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed.
  • Organisms cannot convert heat to any other form of energy.
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25
What are the two principles of energy flow?
1.) Organisms can use only certain forms of energy (e.g., animals must have energy as chemical-bond energy from food, plants must have energy as light). 2.) Whenever organisms use chemical-bond or light energy, some of it is converted to heat (second law of thermodynamics).
26
What is an autotroph?
- An organism able to build the complex organic molecules that it requires as its own food source, using only simple inorganic compounds.
27
What is a photoautotroph?
An organism that harnesses light energy to drive the synthesis of organic compounds from carbon dioxide.
28
What is a chemoautotroph?
An organism that obtains energy by inorganic oxidation reactions; all are prokaryotic.
29
What are heterotrophs?
Organisms that synthesize from inorganic precursors and live by taking in organic compounds that other organisms have made.
30
What is Trophic Level 1?
Primary producers, consisting of all autotrophs.
31
What are the other trophic levels?
Heterotrophs, consumers (herbivores, primary carnivores, secondary carnivores).
32
What is the detritivore trophic level?
Organisms that feed on the remains of already dead organisms.
33
What are decomposers?
Organisms that break up dead organic matter.
34
What is primary productivity?
The amount of energy produced by photosynthetic organisms in a community.
35
What happens to the rate of chemical bond energy in different trophic levels?
It decreases exponentially as energy makes its way from primary producers to herbivores and then to levels of carnivores.
36
What is a trophic cascade?
The process by which effects exerted at an upper trophic level flow down to influence two or more lower levels.
37
What are top-down effects?
Changes in the top trophic level affect primary producers.
38
What are bottom-up effects?
Occur when changes to primary producers affect higher trophic levels.
39
Why does hybridisation only occur in zoos and not in nature?
1.) Habitat preference 2.) Behaviour
40
Why is the biological species concept fundamental?
1.) Biodiversity conservation 2.) Scientists need to know the species they are working on 3.) Ecosystem management
41
What are colour morphs?
- Different colours for males and females. - Different species can resemble one another.
42
What is sexual dimorphism?
The phenotypic differences between males and females of the same species.
43
What is mimicry?
The resemblance of one species to another species; some species can be toxic.
44
What are sex phenotypes?
- Can be determined by social hierarchy. - Can change sex. - Protogynous sequential hermaphrodites (female to male).
45
What is cryptic species diversity?
Species that show morphological similarity aren't always genetically similar.
46
What determines the distribution of a species?
- Spatial distribution - Niche - Competition for space, not physiological tolerances - Competitive exclusion principle - Interference competition
47
What is a niche?
An organism's particular role in an ecosystem, or how it makes its living.
48
What is the competitive exclusion principle?
Two species with identical requirements cannot co-exist.
49
What is interference competition?
Competition for physical space.
50
What is a fundamental niche?
The habitat that a species is capable of using, based on physiological needs.
51
What is a realised niche?
The actual conditions under which a species is found, incorporating ecological factors such as competition.
52
What is the temperature intertidal community?
Dominant competitor, generalist predator.
53
What happens when a generalist is removed from an ecosystem?
Fewer species exist, and the dominant isn't as dominant.
54
What is a keystone species?
A species whose removal has dramatic effects on the community.
55
What are lethal effects?
Predators eating prey.
56
What are non-lethal effects?
Predation risk affects when and where animals forage, affecting behaviors.
57
What is a morphological response to the environment?
Some animals can alter their physical appearance in response to the presence of predators (e.g., snails that grow thicker shells).
58
What is range in ecology?
The geographic area over which a population is distributed.
59
What is species richness?
The number of different species in a community.
60
What is the continuum of plants?
Plant communities across an environmental gradient, such as moisture.
61
What are the means by which a niche may be characterized?
- Space utilization - Temperature range - Food consumption
62
What factors may result in realised niches being smaller than fundamental niches?
Competition, predation, interspecific interactions.
63
What is an example of interference in biology?
Semibalanus barnacles crowding out Chthamalus barnacles in intertidal zones.
64
What is interference biology?
Where organisms directly inhibit others from accessing resources.
65
What is competitive exclusion?
When two species compete for limited resources.
66
What is resource partitioning most likely to result from?
Interspecific competition, where different species compete for similar resources.
67
What is symbiosis?
A long-term, more or less permanent, relationship between two or more species.
68
What is sympatric resource partitioning?
Often observed when two similar species are present.
69
What are the types of symbiotic relationships?
Commensalism, Parasitism, Mutualism.
70
What is a symbiotic interaction?
Morphological differences exhibited by sympatric species as a means of reducing competition.
71
What is mutualism?
A symbiotic interaction between two organisms in which both species benefit.
72
What is commensalism?
One organism benefits and the other is unaffected.
73
What is parasitism?
A relationship between two organisms of different species where one benefits and the other is harmed.
74
What is the teleological argument?
Argues that complex functionality is evidence of intelligent design.
75
What is evolution?
Descent with modification (through natural selection).
76
What is natural selection?
The differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotypes.
77
What is variation?
Any difference between individuals of the same species.
78
What is differential fitness?
Traits that increase chances of survival/reproduction.
79
What is inheritance?
The process in which genetic material is passed from parents to their offspring.
80
What is adaptation?
An inherited characteristic that increases an organism's chance of survival.
81
What are Darwin's finches an example of?
Adaptive radiation: one species migrates, evolves into many species, and fills many niches.
82
What do supporters of intelligent design may not directly support?
- Vestigial structures - Imperfect adaptations
83
What is a monophyletic group?
The most recent common ancestor of the group and all of its descendants are included.
84
What is a paraphyletic group?
The most recent common ancestor of the group is included, as well as some, but not all, of its descendants.
85
What is a polyphyletic group?
The most recent common ancestor of all the members of the group is not included.
86
What can produce microfossil-like structures?
Nonbiological processes.
87
What are microfossils?
Microscopic fossils of single-celled prokaryotic organisms which evolved in the absence of oxygen.
88
What are the eras of life on Earth?
1.) Phanerozoic (present- 500 mya) 2.) Proterozoic (500 - 2500 mya) 3.) Archean (2500-3800 mya) 4.) Hadean (3800 - 4600 mya)
89
What was the Hadean era like?
- Earth was hot, volatile.
90
What happened during the Archean era?
- First life emerged (prokaryotes - red/orange colour). - Deep sea hydrothermal vents (mineral-rich chimneys).
91
What is a prokaryote?
A unicellular organism that lacks a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles.
92
What are cyanobacteria?
Bacteria that can carry out photosynthesis.
93
What are stromatolites and thrombolites?
- Hard structures consisting of cyanobacteria bound with sediments deposited in layers (stromatolites). - Deposited in cauliflower-shaped clumps (thrombolites). - Dominant organisms in the Proterozoic era.
94
What happened during the Proterozoic era?
- Rise of eukaryotes. - Single or multicellular. - Organelles, nucleus, plasma membrane.
95
What is endosymbiosis?
Symbiosis in which one of the symbiotic organisms lives inside the other.
96
What happened during the Phanerozoic era?
- Cambrian explosion discovered in Canada. - Earliest arthropods. - Bilateral symmetry. - Evolution of eyes. - Food web complexity. - Evolution of tetrapods.
97
What are the major extinctions?
- Cretaceous-Tertiary - Permian-Triassic
98
What happened during the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction?
- 75% of plants/animals lost. - Only archosaurs survived (modern birds/crocs). - Formation of Gondwanaland. - Pangaea.
99
What is the evolution of mammals following the break of Pangaea?
1.) Birds/reptiles 2.) Monotremes 3.) Marsupials 4.) Placental.

BIOL1130 (4 decks)

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