Chapter 1

Introduction to
Biological Concepts
and Research

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Earth

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Why It Matters. . .
• How did life originate, how does it persist, and how
is it changing?
• Biology, the science of life, provides scientific
answers to these questions
• Life has existed for billions of years, ever since
nonliving materials assembled into the first
organized, living cells

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1.1 What is Life? Characteristics of Living
Organisms
• Living organisms share a set of characteristics that
collectively set them apart from nonliving matter
• Living organisms have biological molecules that
contain instructions for building other molecules
• Living organisms gather energy and materials
from their surroundings to build new biological
molecules, grow in size, maintain and repair their
parts, and produce offspring

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Characteristics of Living Organisms (cont'd.)
• Living organisms respond to environmental
changes by altering their chemistry and activity in
ways that allow them to survive
• The structure and function of living organisms
often change from one generation to the next

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Living Organisms and Inanimate Objects
• Tarantulas, dead logs,
and all other matter are
composed of atoms and
molecules, which
behave according to the
same physical laws

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Emergent Properties
• The organization of life extends through several
levels of a hierarchy
• Complex biological molecules exist at the lowest
level of organization, but these molecules are not
alive
• Characteristics that depend on the level of
organization, but do not exist at lower levels, are
called emergent properties
• For example: life is an emergent property of the
organization of cells from matter

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Levels of Organization
• Cells are the lowest level of biological
organization that can survive and reproduce
• Many single cells, such as bacteria and
protozoans, exist as unicellular organisms
• Multicellular organisms such as plants and
animals are made up of groups of interdependent
cells
• Populations are groups of organisms of the same
kind that live together in the same place

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Levels of Organization (cont'd.)
• A community is a group of all the populations of
different organisms that live in the same place
• An ecosystem includes the community and the
nonliving environmental factors with which it
interacts
• The biosphere includes all the ecosystems of
Earth’s waters, crust, and atmosphere

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The Hierarchy of Life

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Genetic Information Governs Structure and
Function
• Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
is a large, double-stranded,
helical molecule that contains
instructions for assembling a
living organism from simpler
molecules

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Pathway of Information Flow
• All of the DNA of a living organism constitutes its
genome
• DNA contains the genetic information that makes
organisms unique
• Genes are specific regions of the genome that
encode instructions for building RNA and protein
• The instructions in DNA are copied into molecules
of ribonucleic acid (RNA) which direct the
synthesis of different protein molecules
• Proteins carry out most of the activities of life,
including the synthesis of all other biological
molecules
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Pathway of Information Flow (cont'd.)

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Metabolic Activities
• Metabolism describes the ability of a cell or
organism to extract energy from its surroundings
and use that energy to maintain itself, grow, and
reproduce
• Plants carry out photosynthesis, in which the
electromagnetic energy in sunlight is absorbed
and converted into chemical energy in biological
molecules
• Most organisms use the process of cellular
respiration to break down biological molecules
with oxygen, releasing chemical energy for cellular
activities
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 Energy is stored as
2 chemical energy.

Oxygen Sugar Oxygen

Electromagnetic
energy in sunlight

Photosynthesis captures Cellular respiration

electromagnetic energy releases chemical energy
from sunlight. from sugar molecules.

Released
chemical
Carbon dioxide energy is made
available for other
and metabolic processes.
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Energy Flows and Matter Cycles
• Photosynthetic organisms are primary producers
of the food on which all other organisms rely
• They assemble complex molecules (sugars) from
water and CO2
• Animals are consumers
• They feed (directly or indirectly) on the complex
molecules manufactured by plants
• Certain bacteria and fungi are decomposers
• They feed on dead organisms and break down
biological molecules into raw materials, which may
then be recycled by producers

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Energy Flows and Matter Cycles (cont'd.)
• Energy from sunlight supports most life on Earth
• Some of the energy that photosynthetic organisms
trap from sunlight flows between organisms and
ecosystems
• Each time energy is transferred, some is lost as
heat
• Matter (nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen)
cycles between living organisms and nonliving
components of the biosphere
• Matter is used again and again with no loss

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 Secondary Consumers

Heat Heat
Decomposers Primary Consumers

Heat
Nutrients
Heat recycled Heat
Sun

Primary Producers
Compensating for Environmental Changes
• Only living organisms can detect environmental
changes and compensate for them through
controlled responses
• Diverse and varied receptors (molecules or larger
structures, located on individual cells and body
surfaces) detect changes in external and internal
conditions
• When stimulated, receptors trigger reactions that
produce a compensating response (e.g. regulation
of body temperature)

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Compensating for Environmental Changes
(cont'd.)
• Regulation of internal body temperature within a
narrow range is an example of homeostasis
• The maintenance of a steady internal condition by
responses that compensate for changes in the
external environment
• All organisms have mechanisms that maintain
homeostasis in temperature, blood chemistry, and
other important factors

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Reproduction and Development
• Reproduction is the process in which parents
pass on their DNA and produce offspring that
resemble them
• The transmission of DNA (genetic information)
from one generation to the next is called
inheritance
• Multicellular organisms undergo development, a
series of changes in which a fertilized egg is
transformed into an adult
• The sequential stages through which individuals
develop (as encoded in DNA) are the life cycle of
an organism
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Life Cycle of a Moth

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Populations Change Through Generations
• Populations of all organisms change from one
generation to the next, because some individuals
experience changes in their DNA and pass those
modified instructions along to their offspring
• This biological evolution is a fundamental
process of life

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STUDY BREAK 1.1
• List the major levels in the hierarchy of life and
identify one emergent property of each level
• What do living organisms do with the energy they
collect from the external environment?
• What is a life cycle?

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1.2 Biological Evolution
• Our understanding of the evolutionary process
reveals several truths about the living world:
• All populations change through time
• All organisms are descended from a common
ancestor that lived in the distant past
• Evolution has produced the diversity of life
• Evolution is the unifying theme in biological
sciences

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Darwin and Wallace
• 1800s: Two British naturalists, Charles Darwin and
Alfred Russel Wallace, proposed a mechanism for
evolution
• On a five-year voyage around the world, Darwin
observed many organisms, and noticed how fossils
of extinct species often resembled living species in
some traits
• Darwin concluded that species change from one
form into another over generations
• Wallace came to the same conclusion based on his
work in South America and Asia

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Natural Selection
• Darwin also studied the process of evolution
through observations and experiments on
domesticated animals
• Darwin noted that pigeon breeders who wished to
promote a certain characteristic permitted only
birds that had the desired characteristic to mate
(artificial selection)
• Darwin called the equivalent process that occurs
in nature natural selection

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Artificial Selection

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Darwin and Wallace (cont'd.)
• 1858: Darwin and Wallace summarized their
observations and conclusions:
• Most organisms produce numerous offspring, but
environmental factors limit the number that survive
and reproduce
• Heritable variations allow some individuals to
compete more successfully for space, food, and
mates
• Successful individuals somehow pass the
favorable characteristics to their offspring
• Favorable traits become more common in the next
generation and less successful traits less common
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Mutations in DNA
• The origin and inheritance of new variations arise
from the structure and variability of DNA
• Variability among individuals arises through
random changes (mutations) in the structure,
number, or arrangement of DNA molecules
• Many mutations are of no particular value to
individuals
• Rarely a mutation offers a benefit to an individual
under the prevalent environmental conditions in
which it lives

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Adaptations
• Favorable mutations may produce characteristics
(adaptations) that help an organism survive
longer or reproduce more under specific
environmental conditions
• Example: Rock pocket mice (Chaetodipus
intermedius)
• Mice with cryptic colorations are camouflaged in
their habitats and less likely to be captured
• Random mutations in the Mc1r gene can produce
fur colors ranging from light to dark
• Natural selection conserves random mutations that
produced black fur in mice that live on black rocks
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Camouflage in Rock Pocket Mice

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STUDY BREAK 1.2
• What is the difference between artificial selection
and natural selection?
• How do random changes in the structure of DNA
affect the characteristics of organisms?
• What is the usefulness of being camouflaged in
natural environments?

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1.3 Biodiversity and the Tree of Life
• A species includes all populations of individuals
that have very similar structure, biochemistry, and
behavior, and can successfully interbreed
• A genus is a group of similar species that share
recent common ancestry
• Each species is assigned a two-part scientific
name
• The first part identifies the genus
• The second part identifies a species within that
genus

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Hierarchical Classification
• In traditional classification, species are grouped
into successively more inclusive categories:

Species > Genus > Family > Order >

Class > Phylum > Kingdom

• In recent years, biologists have added the Domain

as the most inclusive group

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 Domain: Eukarya

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Ursidae

Genus: Ursus

Species: Ursus americanus

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The Tree of Life
• Biologists now use DNA and other biological
molecules to construct detailed phylogenetic
trees illustrating evolutionary pathways through
which species and other groups appeared
• Each fork between trunks, branches, and twigs on
the phylogenetic tree represents an evolutionary
event in which one ancestral species gave rise to
two descendant species
• Major branches are equivalent to kingdoms and
phyla; the smallest twigs represent species or
individual populations

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Three Domains and Several Kingdoms
• Three domains – Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya
– are the major trunks on the Tree of Life
• Bacteria and Archaea, are prokaryotes
• The DNA in their cells is not separated from
other cellular components
• The Eukarya are eukaryotes
• Their DNA is enclosed in a separate structure
(nucleus) within the cells, and they have other
specialized internal compartments (organelles)

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Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic Cells

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Domain Bacteria
• Microscopic unicellular organisms
• Found everywhere on Earth
• Use a wide variety of metabolic processes

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Domain Archaea
• Microscopic unicellular
organisms
• Inhabit extreme
environments
• Distinctive structural
molecules

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Domain Eukarya, The “Protists”
• Diverse set of single-
celled and multicellular
eukaryotic species
• Often consumers and
decomposers, but some
photosynthetic
producers

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Domain Eukarya, Kingdom Plantae
• Mostly photosynthetic
multicellular organisms
• Producers such as
flowering plants,
conifers, and mosses

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Domain Eukarya, Kingdom Fungi
• Decomposers that
break down and absorb
biological molecules
from dead organisms
• Includes yeasts and
molds

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Domain Eukarya, Kingdom Animalia
• Multicellular
consumers
• Move actively from one
place to another during
some stage of their life
cycles

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Model Organisms
• Certain species have become favorable research
subjects because their characteristics make them
easy to study.
• Model organisms have rapid development, short
life cycles, and small adult size.
• Research on these organisms provides insights
into biological processes in larger and more
complex ones.

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STUDY BREAK 1.3
• What is a major difference between prokaryotic
and eukaryotic organisms?
• In which domain and kingdom are humans
classified?
• Why do biologists often use model organisms in
their research?

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1.4 Biological Research
• Biological research includes all efforts to
understand diverse aspect of the living world
• Basic research often seeks explanations about
natural phenomena to advance our collective
knowledge, and may not have a specific practical
goal
• Applied research has the goal of solving specific
practical problems, such as development of new
drugs

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The Scientific Method
• The scientific method is an investigative
approach to acquiring knowledge
• Scientists make observations about the natural
world, develop working explanations (hypotheses)
about what they observe, and test their
predictions by collecting information (data)
• Scientists share their work through publications,
which allows other researchers to repeat and
verify their findings

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Observational and Experimental Data
• Observational data (descriptive science)
• Basic information on biological structures or details
of biological processes
• Provides information about systems that have not
yet been well studied
• Experimental data (experimental science)
• Result of careful manipulation of the system under
study
• Answers questions about why or how systems
work

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Testing Hypotheses
• Once the facts have been observed, scientists
develop a tentative explanation (hypothesis) to
explain them
• A null hypothesis is a statement of what they
would see if the hypothesis being tested is not
correct
• A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable by
experimentation or further observation
• Hypotheses generally explain the relationship
between variables – factors that differ among
places or individuals

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Testing Hypotheses (cont'd.)
• Hypotheses yield testable predictions
• What the researcher expects to happen to one
variable if another variable changes
• Scientists then test their hypotheses and
predictions with tests that generate relevant data
• If data from just one study refute a scientific
hypothesis, the hypothesis must be modified or
abandoned

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Testing Hypotheses (cont'd.)
• No amount of data can prove beyond a doubt that
a hypothesis is correct
• Scientists state that positive results are consistent
with, support, or confirm a hypothesis
• Scientists must always consider alternative
hypotheses when designing experiments

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The Process of Science

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Controlled Experiments
• A control represents a null hypothesis; it tells us
what we would see in the absence of the
experimental manipulation
• In controlled experiments, everything is exactly the
same, or as close as possible, except for the
experimental variable
• Any difference in results observed between the
experimental group and the control group can be
attributed to the experimental variable
• Nearly all biological experiments include
replicates
• Multiple subjects that receive the same treatment
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Question: Will giving the plant Experiment: Establish six replicates of
fertilizer induce it to flower? an experimental treatment

Add fertilizer

Friend added fertilizer You did not add fertilizer

Experimental Control
Treatment Treatment
Add fertilizer No fertilizer

Possible Result 1: Possible Result 2:

Neither experimental nor control Plants in the experimental group flower, but
plants flower. plants in the control group do not.
Experimentals Controls Experimentals Controls

Conclusion: Fertilizer alone does Conclusion: The application of fertilizer

not cause the plants to flower. induces flowering in this type of plant.
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The Null Hypothesis
• When the systems under study are too large or
complex for experimental manipulation, biologists
can use a null hypothesis to evaluate
observational data
• Example: temperature regulation in lizards
• Researchers used copper models to establish a
null hypothesis about the percentage of lizards that
would perch in sunlit spots by chance
• The temperatures of the models provided a null
hypothesis about what the temperatures of lizards
would be if they perched at random in their habitats

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Anolis Copper
cristatellus Anolis
model

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Molecular Tools Allow Researchers to Explore
• New techniques allow us to study life processes at
the molecular level
• Can isolate individual genes and manipulate them
in the test tube, and modify organisms by replacing
or adding genes
• Genomics characterizes entire genomes and has
been an important tool for creating the Tree of Life
• Proteomics studies the proteome (inventory of
proteins), which constantly changes in response to
the environment, unlike the stable genome
• Bioinformatics tools analyze the huge volume of
data generated by these research projects
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Scientific Theories
• When many different tests consistently confirm a
hypothesis that addresses many broad questions,
it may be considered a scientific theory
• Scientists usually regard scientific theories as
established truths that are unlikely to be
contradicted by future research
• This use of the word theory is quite different from
its meaning in everyday life

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Motivations for Scientific Research
• Intense curiosity about ourselves, our fellow
creatures, and the chemical and physical objects
of the world and their interactions is a basic
ingredient of scientific research
• Biological research has practical motivations – for
example, to cure disease or improve agricultural
productivity
• One strict requirement of science is honesty –
otherwise the work of science is meaningless

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STUDY BREAK 1.4
• In your own words, explain the most important
requirement of a scientific hypothesis
• What information did the copper lizard models
provide in the study of temperature regulation
described earlier?
• How would you respond to a nonscientist who
told you that Darwin’s ideas about evolution were
“just a theory”?

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