Principles of Biology 1
Terms
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- Fact
- A measured property of the surrounding world. A measured observation.
- Law
- A regular pattern of occurrence in Nature.
- Theory
- A general idea that aids in conceptually unifying, hence explaining, many and diverse phenomena of nature.
- Inertia
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The tendency for the velocity of any object to stay the same if unaffected by outside forces
Field Force – the push or pull that an object experiences as the result of colliding with another object.
- Potential Energy (PE)
- The energy associated with the potential – due to the presence of an unequal distribution of forces – of an object to increase its velocity, or accelerate, in the future.
- 1st Law of Thermodynamics
- energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one type of energy to another. (PE to KE or KE to PE)
- Heat
- Random molecular motion
- Self-assembly
- The tendency of certain objects, due to field force interactions, to take on and/or stay in a nonrandom arrangement.
- Ordered arrangement
- When parts of system are arranged in a pattern – that is, they have a non random arrangement.
- Self-organization
- A system’s parts interact in a way that results in these parts taking on a nonrandom arrangement.
- Process
- that which occurs when something (a processor) alters inputs, such that outputs are different than inputs.
- Performance
- that which results from two or more proceses being linked together by regulatory connections.
- Sensor
- device that adjusts a processors rate as a response to detecting some change in conditions
- Input-based regulation
- Whenever one processor is input limited, and the actions of another processor influences the supply of the limiting input.
- Counter-acting response
- when a sensor that detects some trend of change initiates rate adjustments that act to reverse the trend.
- Co-acting response
- When a sensor that detects some trend of change initiates rate adjustments that act to maintain or even accelerate the trend.
- Homeostasis
- the act of maintaining similar conditions despite constant disruptive fluctuations.
- Information
- What any arrangement that can code for some activity has. (Something that has information can be interpreted, where the interpretation is the conversion of the coded activity into the activity.)
- Genome
- a set of information that, in total, has sufficient information to guide the development of a reproductively competent organism.
- Gene
- A single instruction within a genome.
- Genotype
- an organism’s specific constitution of genetic information.
- Phenotype
- the performing (active) part of an individual organism, which is generally thought of as the organism’s body. (Geneticists commonly use the term phenotype to refer to specific features of an individual’s body.)
- Shape-performance tradeoff
- the notion that because an organism has a particular shape (at any point during its life) it cannot be great at doing everything. Any shape makes certain activities possible, but at the cost of not being the best shape to perform well in other ways.
- Asexual reproduction
- the production of offspring by a single parent, where, in the absence of errors, the parent’s genotype is passed intact to each offspring.
- Sex
- when genetic information from more than one individual is combined into a single individual.
- Gamete
- a haploid cell capable of fusing with another gamete – typically of the opposite sex – to form a diploid cell.
- Anisogamy
- when a sexual population produces two distinct types of gametes – generally a small mobile gamete (male) and a larger nutrient-laden gamete (female).
- Ploidy level
- number of genomes contained within a cell.
- Biological species concept
- two individual organisms of the opposite sex are members of the same species, if and only if, they recognize each other as potential mates (hence may attempt to mate), and if they do mate they can produce viable offspring; the largest unit of populations within which the mixing of genetic information through sexual reproduction occurs or could occur.
- Trophic level
- a species’ position in an energy food chain. First trophic level, for example, are species able to use the sun as an energy source, second trophic level species acquire their needed supply of usable energy by feeding on first trophic level species, and so on.
- Gross production efficiency
- the efficiency with which biomass consumed from one trophic level is converted into biomass at the next trophic level.
- Niche
- the set of conditions (based on each species’ set of requirements) under which a species can maintain a viable population.
- Carrying capacity
- the maximum sustainable population size for each species within a community.
- Gene pool
- The entire genetic constitution of a sexual population. (In other words, it is all the genetic information contained all the genotypes of the individuals that make up the population)
- Mutation
- a modification of the genotype within an individual cell. (In multicellular organisms such modification could occur in either a somatic cell – somatic mutation – or in its germ cells – germ-line mutation)
- Biological Evolution
- the two-step process of descent with modification followed by persistence across generations.
- Natural selection
- whenever a modified type is caught in a reproductive race with an ancestral type, and the outcome of the race is affected by differences in performance ability.
- Genetic drift
- Whenever a modified type is caught in a reproductive race with an ancestral type, and the outcome of the race is affected by chance occurrences.
- Phylogeny
- The pattern of relatedness among different species, where any two species relatedness depends on how recently they branched from a common ancestor. (For example, if among three species –A, B, and C—A and B share a more recent common ancestor than A and C or B and C, then A and B are the most closely related species among the three.)