BIOF11: Foundation Biology 1 Practice Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards based on the BIOF11 Foundation Biology 1 Final Examination paper covering genetics, evolution, biological organization, and classification.

Deduction

A kind of logic involving extrapolating from general premises to specific results.

Somatic cells

Human body cells other than eggs and sperm that contain $46$ chromosomes and arise by mitotic cell division.

Alleles

Alternative forms of genes for a particular characteristic.

Nucleotides

Subunits that serve as the building blocks for RNA or DNA polymers.

True breeding

An organism that is either homozygous dominant or homozygous recessive for a certain characteristic.

Gene

The biological information for making a polypeptide.

Bilateral symmetry

An animal body plan best correlated with motility and the active predation and escape.

Co-dominance

An inheritance pattern where both alleles are expressed in the phenotype, such as the AB blood type.

Class Aves

A class of animals characterized by the unique feature of feathers.

Chrondrichthyes

The class of fish to which sharks belong.

Endospores

Structures formed by bacteria like Bacillus thuringensis to withstand heat, dryness, and toxic chemicals.

Fungi

Heterotrophic eukaryotes that digest their food externally and absorb the small molecules.

Biosphere

The sum of all the earth's ecosystems.

Dinoflagellate

Organisms responsible for the blooms known as poisonous "red tides."

Bacteriophages

Viruses that reproduce inside bacteria.

Natural selection

The mechanism responsible for evolution according to Darwin.

Phylum Annelida

The phylum in which leeches are classified.

Community

The level of biological organization describing all organisms in a particular area.

Population

A collection of inter-breeding organisms of a particular species.

Organ

A collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function.

Tissue

A group of similar cells with a specific function.

Prezygotic barrier

A reproductive barrier that prevents mating or fertilization between species, such as different waving motions in male fiddler crabs.

Postzygotic barrier

A reproductive barrier that occurs after hybrid zygotes have been formed, such as the sterility of offspring or weak, unhealthy tiglons.

Adaptive radiation

The evolution of many diverse species from a common ancestor.

Transcription

The process of protein synthesis where a messenger RNA molecule is made in the nucleus.

Translation

The process where a ribosome reads an mRNA message to make a protein.

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium

A state in which the frequency of alleles in a population remains constant, allowing for the calculation of frequencies like heterozygous $(Rr)$ traits.

Alternation of generation

A life cycle strategy used by plants that involves switching between multicellular haploid and diploid stages.

Marsupials

A group of mammals that carry their young in a pouch.

Cambrian Explosion

A period of rapid evolutionary change and diversification of animal phyla.