Chapter 1 Lecture 2
Themes of Life
Themes/topics in the study of Biology
Biology is the study of life
All forms of life share common properties
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P 48 fig 1.3
Properties of life include:
Order: the highly ordered structure that
typifies/characterizes life
Properties of life continued…..
Reproduction: the ability of organisms/ living
things to reproduce their own kind
Growth and development: consistent growth and
development controlled by inherited DNA,
inherited information carried by genes controls the
pattern of growth and development of organisms
Energy processing: the use of chemical energy to
power an organism’s activities and chemical
reactions, chemical energy stored in food is used to
power an organism’s activities
Response to the environment: the ability to
Properties of life
continued…..
Regulation: the ability to control an organism’s
internal environment within limits that sustain life
Evolutionary adaptation: Adaptations evolve over
many generations by reproductive success of those
individuals with heritable traits that are best suited
to their environments have greater reproductive
success and pass their traits to offspring.
connections across different
areas of biology
The study of life extends from the microscopic
scale of the molecules and cells that make up
organisms to the global scale of the entire living
planet.
New properties emerge at each level in the
biological hierarchy
Organisms interact with each other and their
physical environment
Life requires energy transfer and transformation
The continuity of life is based on heritable
information
Feedback mechanisms regulate biological systems
New properties emerge at
each level in life’s hierarchy
of organization
Molecule
Is a structure consisting of two or more small
chemical units called atoms
Structure of an atom
Organelles
Is a membrane bound structure that performs a
specific function in a cell
Chloroplast picture
Cells
Are structural and functional units of life/ a functional
unit of life.
Cells are the level at which the properties of life emerge.
Cells can:
- regulate their internal environment
- take in and use energy
- respond to their environment
- develop and maintain their complex
organization
- give rise to new cells
- are enclosed by membrane that regulates the
passage of materials between the cell and
its
surroundings
There are two basic types of cells
Prokaryotic cells
- Were the first to evolve
- Are simpler
- Are usually smaller than eukaryotic cells
Eukaryotic cells
- Contain membrane bound organelles, including a
nucleus which contains DNA
- Are found in plants, animals and fungi
Figure 1.8
Prokaryotic cell
Eukaryotic cell DNA
(no nucleus)
Membrane
Membrane
Cytoplasm
Nucleus
(membrane-
enclosed)
Membrane- DNA (throughout
enclosed organelles nucleus) 1 m
Tissues
A group of similar cells that perform a specific
function
Organ
A structure that is composed of tissues and that
provides a specific function for the organism
Organ system
several organs that cooperate in a specific function
Organism
An individual living thing
Population
All individuals of a species living in a specific area
Community
The entire array of organisms living in a particular
ecosystem
Ecosystem
All the organisms living in a particular area and
the physical components with which organisms
interact
Biosphere
All of the environments that supports life
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Systems Biology
A system is a combination of components that
function together- from functioning of biosphere to
the complex molecular machinery of a cell.
System biology is an approach that attempts to
model the dynamic behaviour of whole biological
systems based on a study of the interactions
among the system’s parts
This systems approach enables us to pose new
questions,
Such as: How might increase in atmospheric
carbon dioxide alter ecosystems?
Its ultimate aim is to answer large scale questions
Cells are the structural and functional
units of life
Cells illustrate another theme of
biology: the correlation of
structure and function.
Structure is related to function
at all levels of biological
organization.
Living organisms interact with their
environment, exchange matter and energy
Living organisms interact with their
environments which include: - other
organisms
- physical factors
In most ecosystems:
Plants are producers that provide food
Consumers eat plants and other animals
and
Decomposers act as recyclers, changing
complex matter into simpler mineral
nutrients.
Organisms interact with each
other and the physical
environment
The dynamics of ecosystems include two major
processes:
- The recycling of chemical nutrients from the
atmosphere and soil through producers, consumers
and decomposers back to the environment
- The one way flow of energy through an ecosystem,
energy enters the system as sunlight, converted to
chemical energy by producers, passed on to
consumers and exit as heat.
Figure 1.5
Sunlight
Leaves absorb
light energy from Leaves take in
the sun. carbon dioxide
CO2 from the air
and release
oxygen.
O2
Cycling
of
chemical
nutrients
Leaves fall to Water and Animals eat
the ground and minerals in leaves and fruit
are decomposed the soil are from the tree.
by organisms taken up by
that return the tree
minerals to the through
soil. its roots.
The continuity of life is based
on heritable information in the
form of DNA
All cells have DNA, which is the chemical
substance of genes
Genes
- Genes are units of inheritance that transmits
information from parents to offspring
- Genes encode the information necessary to build
other molecules in a cell
- They are coded in the sequences of four building
blocks that make up DNA’s double helix
- The diversity of life arises from differences in
DNA sequences
Evolution is the core theme that
accounts for unity and diversity
of life
We can think of biology’s enormous scope as
having two dimensions
- The vertical dimension is the size scale that
stretches from molecules to the biosphere
- The horizontal dimension spans across the great
diversity of organisms existing now and over the
long history of life on earth
Classifying the diversity of life
Biologists have identified more than 1.8
million species
Estimates of the actual number of species
ranges from 10 to 100 million.
The enormous variety of life gives biology a
very broad scope.
Biologists face a major challenge in
attempting to make sense of this variety.
Taxonomy name species and classify them
into a system of broader groups.
The diversity of life can be
arranged into three domains
Bacteria- are the most diverse and widespread
prokaryotes
Archaea
Are prokaryotes that often live on Earth’s extreme
environment such as salty lakes and boiling hot
springs
Eukarya
have eukaryotic cells and it includes
- single-celled protists and
- multicellular fungi, animals and plants
Unity in the diversity of life
Evolution explains the unity and diversity of life
The history of life as documented by fossils, is a
saga(ancient stories) of changing Earth
with his theory of the origin of
species
He said: The origin of species articulated two main
points:
Contemporary/current species arose from a
succession of
ancestors- he called this evolutionary history of
species “descent with modifications”
Individuals with inherited traits that are best
suited to the local environment, are more likely to
survive and reproduce than the less suited
individuals, this mechanism of evolution is called
Charles Darwin’s explanation
on natural selection
His observations were:
1. Individuals in a population vary in their
traits, many of those traits are passed on
from parent to offspring.
A population can produce far more offspring
than the environment can support.
Figure 1.20
1 Population with 2 Elimination of 3 Reproduction of 4 Increasing
varied inherited individuals with survivors frequency of
traits certain traits traits that
enhance
survival and
reproductive
success
From these observations,
Darwin concluded that:
Those individuals with heritable traits best
suited to the environment are more likely to
survive and reproduce than less well-suited
individuals
As a result of this unequal reproductive
success over many generations, an increasing
proportion of individuals will have the
advantageous traits and
The result will be evolutionary adaptation,
the accumulation of favourable traits in a
population over time.
End of today’s lecture
