Midterm Topic Overview

Ecology

• Food Webs/Chains

  • Trophic levels

    • Producer, Consumer, Decomposer

    • Autotroph vs Heterotroph

• Biological relationships

  • Symbiosis

  • Predation

• Basic units of life (small → large)

  • Organelles → cells → tissue → organ → organ system → organism → population → community → ecosystem → biome → biosphere

• Biomes/Climate + related graphs

  • Desert - ↓ precipitation, ↓ biodiversity

  • Tundra - ↑ precipitation, ↓ biodiversity

  • Tropical Rainforest - ↑ precipitation, ↑ biodiversity

  • etc

  • Ecotones - areas between biomes

  • Climatographs

• Ecological Pyramids

  • Mass, Energy, Number

  • Bioaccumulation

• Biogeochemical cycles

  • Nitrogen

  • Water

  • Carbon

  • Phosphorus

Evolution

• Natural Selection vs Artificial Selection vs sexual selection

  • Fitness → Increased by Adaptations

    • Behavioral

    • Structural

    • Physiological

• Levels of classification/naming

  • Taxonomy

    • (D) K P C O F G S

    • Kingdoms:

      • Archeabacteria

      • Eubacteria

      • Protista

      • Fungi

      • Plantae

      • Animalia

• Convergent vs Divergent Evolution

  • C - wrongly classifying things as the same species because of analogous structures

  • D - a species acquires so many variations that it becomes its own species (diverges from the original one)

• Reproductive Isolation/Speciation

  • Allopatric vs Sympatric Speciation

    • A - physical barriers that cause speciation

    • S - behavioral barriers that cause speciation

  • Pre vs Post zygotic barriers

    • Pre: Behavioral, geographic, gametic, mechanical, temporal, habitat

    • Post: Hybrid breakdown, viability, fertility

• Cladograms/Phylogenetic trees

  • Where new structures are developed

  • C - Based on physical characteristics

  • PTs - Based on genetics + physical characteristics

• Properties of Water

Biochemistry

• Carbs

  • Monomer = monosaccharide

  • Polymer = polysaccharide

  • Eg. Glucose

• Lipids

  • Don’t form polymers

  • Eg. Phospholipid

• Proteins

  • Monomer = amino acid

  • Polymer = polypeptide

  • Strucutre (1-4)

  • Denaturation

    • pH, salinity, temperature

  • Eg. Enzymes

• Nucleic Acid

  • Monomer = nucleotide (purine vs pyrimidine)

  • Polymer = Nucleic Polymer

  • Eg. DNA

• Other important molecules

  • Cellulose - Used in structure of plants (cell walls)

  • Chitin - Used in animal exoskeletons/fungi cell walls

  • Starch - Polysaccharide used for energy storage

    • Eg. amylose/amylopectin - Plant starch

    • Glycogen - Polysaccharide used for energy storage in animals

People (Scientists)

• Darwin

  • Theory of Evolution based on natural selection

• Lamark

  • Law of Use and Disuse - Passing on desirable characteristics

    • Saw giraffes and thought the constant use of their necks elongated their necks

  • Considered the idiot of evolution b/c he was wrong about hereditary nature

• Lyell

  • Gradualism

  • Theory of Uniformitarianism

  • Law of Superposition

• Malthus

  • Growth of populations is limited by resource availability

    • competitive exclusion principle

• Miller

  • Recreated ancient Earth environment and created amino acids - proved inorganic compounds could produce organic compounds in the right conditions

• Wohler/Kolbe

  • Disproved vitalism

    • First Wohler but results were questioned, experiment altered/redone by Kolbe