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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE
FOURTH EDITION
SCOTT FREEMAN
Lectures by Stephanie Scher Pandolfi
2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Key Concepts
All living organisms share five fundamental characteristics energy utilization, cellularity, information processing, replication, and evolution.
The cell theory states that all organisms are comprised of cells and all cells come from preexisting cells. The theory of evolution by natural selection describes how species change through time.
Key Concepts
A phylogenetic tree is a graphical representation of the evolutionary relationships among species. Phylogenies can be established by analyzing similarities and differences in traits.
Biologists ask questions, generate hypotheses to answer them, and design experiments that test the predictions made by competing hypotheses.
Theories
A theory is an explanation for a very general class of phenomena or observations.
Theories have two components. Pattern Something that occurs in the natural world Process Responsible for creating the pattern Two theories form the framework for modern biological science. The cell theory The theory of evolution by natural selection
Evolutionary Change
If certain heritable traits lead to increased success in producing offspring, these traits become more common in the population over time. In this way, the populations characteristics change as a result of natural selection acting on individuals.
Natural selection acts on individuals, but evolutionary change occurs in populations.
Artificial Selection
In artificial selection, changes in populations occur when humans select which individuals will produce the most offspring. Repeating this process over generations results in changes in the characteristics of a domesticated population over time.
Artificial Selection
The tree of life is a family tree of organisms that describes the genealogical relationships among species with a single ancestral species at its base.
Phylogeny is the actual genealogical relationships among all organisms.
2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the effort to name and classify organisms. A taxon is a named group. To reflect the tree of life, Woese created a new taxonomic level called the domain, which consists of three taxa: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya.
A phylum is a major lineage within a domain.
Rules of Nomenclature
An organisms genus and species designation is called its scientific name or Latin name.
Scientific names are always italicized. Genus names are always capitalized, but species names are notfor instance, Homo sapiens.
Hypothesis Testing
Hypothesis testing is a two-step process: 1. State the hypothesis as precisely as possible and list the predictions it makes. 2. Design an observational or experimental study that is capable of testing those predictions.
Experimental Setup
Wittlingers group manipulated the ants into three groups after walking from the nest to a feeder: 1. Stumps legs were cut to form shorter-than-normal legs 2. Normal individuals were left alone with normal legs 3. Stilts bristles glued on legs to form longer-thannormal legs
Measured the distance the ants traveled back to the nest via a different route