Biology II H – Ms.

Wolcott
Chapter1 Exploring Life
Guided Reading

As you read Ch. 1, complete the guided reading. If you are very thorough with your responses, this will
be a good study tool or the test.

Biology: The Scientific Study of Life (Modules 1.1-1.3)

1. List the characteristics of life and give a brief description of each:

Order- characterized by ordered structures
Reproduction- organisms spawn new life
Growth and development- how organisms grow is controlled by inherited dna
Responses to the environment- organisms respond to their habitat
Energy Processing- organisms take in energy to fuel everyday activities
Regulation- organisms display actions to regulate themselves internally
Evolutionary Adaptations- adaptations due to environment of organism

2. List the levels of taxonomic organization from most inclusive to least inclusive:

Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus

3. Complete the following table that compares the four kingdoms of the domain Eukarya:

Plantae Animalia Fungi Protista

Characteristics Produce their own Obtain Decompose organic mostly single celled
food food by eating other waste and absorb organisms
by photosynthesis organisms nutrients into cells
4. What do all members of domains Archaea and Bacteria have in common?
They both contain microscopic organisms with simple cells

5. Which of the following would be considered a population: the nervous system of a human, all organisms
found in a tropical rainforest, a lion in a zoo, or a school of fish in a lake? Explain.

All organism in a rainforest, because population is the group of organisms in a specific region

6. The fact that new characteristics emerge as you go higher in biological levels is referred to as emergent
properties. In your own words, explain emergent properties.
Properties that arise each step upwards in the hierarchy of life

Five Unifying Themes in Biology (Modules 1.9-1.14)

7. What is responsible for the change that has occurred to life on Earth from the beginnings of the planet to
today?

8. Fill in the illustration regarding Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection:

Observatio Observatio
n1 n2
Individual Overproducti
variation on of
offspring

Inferenc
e1
Unequal
reproductive
success

Inferenc
e2
Accumulatio
n of
favorable
traits over
time.
9. What do red pandas, weasels, and raccoons have in common? Use Figure 1.9C from pg 11 of your textbook.

They have a common ancestor

10. A soybean farmer applies a pesticide to his crops each year. After several years, he notices that the
pesticide seems to have less of an effect on the insects. The population of insects is now more resistant to
the pesticide Would this be an example of artificial or natural selection? Explain.

The insects due to natural selection have breed genetics immune to the products used in the pesticide

11. Briefly explain what you think would happen to the insect population if the farmer from the previous
question applied a different pesticide the next year. Be thorough in your explanation.
The insect population would drop as they do not have the immunity to the new formula of pesticide

12. Units of inheritance are often referred to as ________genes_______.

13. How is the genetic code analogous to the letters of the alphabet?
The analogues add up to specific genes like words add up to words

14. Human growth hormone (HGH) is necessary for growth during human adolescence. Pituitary dwarfism is a
condition that results from the inability of a person to produce HGH. Luckily, the human gene for HGH can
be inserted into E. coli, which are able to make our HGH. The resulting HGH is used by people who are
unable to make their own. What property about hereditary information makes this possible?

15. List the five themes that unify biology and give a brief description of each:
16. Describe an example of how form follows function at the cellular level:

17. Energy and chemicals move through ecosystems in different ways. Nutrients are constantly
__________________ through the ecosystem, while energy moves through an ecosystem in
__________________ direction.

18. Complete the table below that compares the roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers in an
ecosystem.

Producers Consumers Decomposers

Role(s) within an
ecosystem