TEN THEMES IN BIOLOGY
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- Emergent Properties
- The living world has a hierarchical organization, from molecules to the biosphere. With each step upward in organizational level, novel properties emerge as a result of interactions among components at the lower levels.
- The cell
- Cells are organism's basic unit of structure and function. Prokaryotic (bacteria and archaea), Eukaryotic (protists, plants, fungi, and animals)
- Heritable Information
- The continuity of life depends on the inheritance of biological information in the form of DNA molecules. This genetic information is encoded in the nucleotide sequences of the DNA.
- Structure/Function
- Form and functions are correlated at all levels of biological organization
- Interaction with the Environment
- Organisms are open systems that exchange materials and energy with their surroundings. An organisms environment includes other organisms as well as nonliving factors
- Regulation
- Feedback mechanisms regulate biological systems. In some cases, the regulation maintains homeostasis, a relatively steady state for internal factors such as body temperature
- Unity and Diversity
- Biologists group the diversity of life into three domains; Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. Universal genetic code is same throughout (unity).
- Evolution
- Biology's core theme, explains unity and diversity. Darwinian theory explains adaptation of populations to their environment through differential reproductive success of varying individuals.
- Scientific Inquiry
- Hypothetic-deductive method; depends on repeatability; observations, question, hypothesis, prediction, test.
- Science, technology, society
- Technology is crucial to biology advancement