BASIC BIOLOGY NOTES

INTRODUCTION TO CELL BIOLOGY

 All living things are made from one or more cells

 Cell is the simplest unit of life, they are responsible for keeping an
organism alive and functioning.
 Regarded as vital unit of organism
 All cells arise only from pre-existing cells.
 Gene theory: heredity information (DNA) is passed on from cell to
cell.
 Evolution: all cells have the same basic chemical composition.
 Law of thermodynamics: Energy flow occurs within cells.
 The two primary kinds of cells are eukaryotic cells, which have a
true nucleus containing DNA & prokaryotic cells, which have no true
nucleus.
 In prokaryotic cells, the DNA is coiled up in a region called the
nucleoid.

MODERN CELL THEORY

 Multicellular organisms depend on the total activity of every cell

 Energy flow occurs within cells
 Cells contain hereditary information passed on to the next cell
 All cells in similar species have the same basic composition

CHARACTERISTICS OF LIFE

 have regulation of homeostasis

 feedback systems
 metabolisms
 need energy, chemical reactions are part of metabolism
  example: photosysthesis occur in autotraphs, they break down
glucose to make atp energy
 reproduction, ex: sperm and egg cell fuse
 growth and development
 have genetic material to grow- contains instruction to grow
 respond to stimuli: internal and external
 evolution: a self-sustaining system capable of Darwinian evolution
 ex: natural selection, high/low reproductive fitness

EMBRYOLOGY

 study of development of vertebrate animals before birth or hatching

 embryos show similarities which can support common ancestry
 For example, all vertebrate embryos have gill slits and tails. The
“gill slits” are not gills, however. They connect the throat to the
outside early in development but eventually close in many species;
only in fish and larval amphibians do they contribute to the
development of gills. In mammals, the tissue between the first gill
slits forms part of the lower jaw and the bones of the inner ear. The
embryonic tail does not develop into a tail in all species; in humans,
it is reduced during development to the coccyx, or tailbone. Similar
structures during development support common ancestry.
 Many basic similarities in comparative anatomy support recent
common ancestry.
 Similarities in structure for closely related species are homologous.
 Similarities in structure among distantly related species are
analogous if they evolved independently in similar environments.
They provide good evidence for natural selection.
 Examples of evidence from embryology which supports common
ancestry include the tail and gill slits present in all early vertebrate
embryos.
  Vestigial structures are reduced and perhaps even nonfunctional,
but homologous to fully developed and functional similar structures
in a closely related species; these support the idea of natural
selection.
 Cavefish without sight or pigment and humans with goose bumps
illustrate the concept of vestigiality.

EVOLUTION
Homologous
 If two or more species share a unique physical feature, such as a
complex bone structure or a body plan, they may all have inherited
this feature from a common ancestor. Physical features shared due
to evolutionary history (a common ancestor) are said to be
homologous.
 Example: The forelimbs of whales, humans, birds, and dogs look
pretty different on the outside. That's because they're adapted to
function in different environments. However, if you look at the bone
structure of the forelimbs, you'll find that the pattern of bones is
very similar across species. It's unlikely that such similar structures
would have evolved independently in each species, and more likely
that the basic layout of bones was already present in a common
ancestor of whales, humans, dogs and birds.
 Sometimes, organisms have structures that are homologous to
important structures in other organisms but that have lost their
major ancestral function. These structures, which are often reduced
in size, are known as vestigial structures. Examples of vestigial
structures include the tailbone of humans (a vestigial tail), the hind
leg bones of whales, and the underdeveloped legs found in some
snakes (see picture at right)

Analogous
 some physical similarities are analogous: they evolved
independently in different organisms because the organisms lived in
similar environments or experienced similar selective pressures.
This process is called convergent evolution.
 For example, two distantly related species that live in the Arctic, the
arctic fox and the ptarmigan (a bird), both undergo seasonal
changes of color from dark to snowy white. This shared feature
 doesn’t reflect common ancestry – i.e., it's unlikely that the last
common ancestor of the fox and ptarmigan changed color with the
seasons. Instead, this feature was favored separately in both
species due to similar selective pressures. That is, the genetically
determined ability to switch to light coloration in winter helped both
foxes and ptarmigans survive and reproduce in a place with snowy
winters and sharp-eyed predators.

CELL MEMBRANE AND ITS FUNCTION

Endosymbiosis theory- campbell pg 155
- States that a early ancestor of eukaryotic cells engulfed an oxygen
using non-photosynthetic prokaryotic cell.

FUNCTION OF PROTEIN IN CELL MEMBRANE: PG 175