1. In life's hierarchy of organization, what new properties emerge at each level?
A: The first level to emerge is the biosphere, which is all of the environments on Earth that can support life. Following the biosphere is the ecosystem - all of the living organisms in an area, as well as the nonliving components that the organisms interact with, such as soil, water, and air. Next is a community, meaning the entire spectrum of organisms that inhabit a certain ecosystem. Then it moves on to a population, which is the individuals of a species living in a certain place. After is the organism, the individual living things. Then we move on to the organ system, organ, tissue, cell, organelle and finally the molecule, which completes life's hierarchy of organization.
2. How are biology and society connected?
A: One of the biggest ways that biology is in medicine. Biology has allowed us as a people to develop medicines that prolong the life span, along with increasing the individuals chance of survival from birth. However, while this is often seen as a positive outcome, it can also have some detrimental consequences, such as the overpopulation of the earth that has lead to global warming. Therefore, biology has had an affect on the society in the way that we are all now left trying to find a way to stop the affects of global warming, and make sure that the world is still here to discover.
3. How do you explain the unity and diversity of life?
A: Evolution and natural selection. Natural selection easily explains the unity of life, as it is the process which edits and selects the best fit members of a species to survive, unifying those members. Evolution explains the diversity of life, as it helps each species mold and adapt to their environment in order to best fulfill their needs.
Five Main Facts From The Reading:
1. Evolution explains the unity and diversity of life.
2. Evolution and Natural Selection are connected to the everyday life.
3. Living Organisms interact with their environments, exchanging matter and energy.
4. In life's hierarchy of organization, new properties emerge at each level.
5. The diversity of life can be arranged into three domains.
In this diagram it shows life's hierarchy of organization, wherein new properties emerge at each level, all the way from the biosphere to macromolocules, such as DNA.Ten Key Terms:
Biosphere - consists of all the environments on earth that support life.
Ecosystem - consists of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as the nonliving things they interact with.
Community - the array of organisms living in an ecosystem.
Population - all the individuals of a species that live in a specified area.
Organism - individual living thing.
Producers - provide the food for a typical ecosystem.
Consumers - Consume what the producers have provided.
Decomposers - Get rid of wastes and the remains of dead organisms, allowing new life to develop.
Discovery Science - science that uses verifiable observations and measurements as the data.
Hypothesis-based science - Uses deductive reasoning to bring a hypothesis to it's conclusion.
Simulation of Evolution Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXzcPNsqGA
So, this chapter was all about the fundamentals of biology...WHAT exactly it means to be alive. It explored the hierarchy of life by showing us a coastal ecosystem, starting all the way from the biosphere and working its way down to the tiniest molecule. It also showed us more in depth how the ecosystem functions, the roles played by all the organisms that work together to inhabit a certain area of the world...in this case, the plains of Africa.
It also talked about the relationship between the science of biology and the "real," everyday world. How new discoveries both help us, and potentially harm us. It stressed the importance of balancing science and nature, how if we try to manipulate the world around us too much it will most likely backfire and cause problems that may be beyond our ability to solve, like global warming.
This chapter was an introduction to the world of biology, giving us brief glimpses of what we will delve deeper into in the later chapters.
No comments:
Post a Comment