Biology 110 Study Guidelines for Final

Please Note: You are also responsible for reviewing all online chapter outlines, all quizzes and midterms given during the semester, your class notes, in-class videos, and all notes you have taken on your own during the semester while reading the chapters.

Chapter 1

What is life? What is the basic unit of life?

What is the hierarchy of biological organization?

How is there unity among all life forms? What about biodiversity?

What are mutations? What do they provide to cells?

What is the scientific method? What are the steps? What is experimentation?

How do organisms sense their environment?

Define and give examples of Darwin's theory of evolution (natural selection).

 Chapter 29

What is the organization of animal bodies from cells to organ systems?

What is homeostasis?

What are the different types of tissues?

How do muscle tissues contract and relax?

Give examples of connective tissues.

 Chapter 2

What is the structure of atoms? of molecules? of compounds?

What are the three types of bonding, and which is strongest?

What are isotopes? What is a half-life?

What are the properties of water? Why is it so unique?

Define polar vs nonpolar?

 Chapter 3

How do some macromolecules assemble themselves? Remember protocells?

Define lipids, proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates in terms of structure and function.

Know the subunits of the macromolecules.

What is an organic molecule?

Why is carbon the basic atom of life? Its properties/

What are the main elements of macromolecules in addition to carbon?

What is metabolism?


Chapter 4

What is the structural organization of cells?

Define each of the organelles and their functions.

What is the structure and function of biological membranes?

What is the importance of the cell's surface area to volume ratio?

Know differences between animal and plant cells.

Know differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.

What is the cytomembrane system?


Chapter 5

How do cells acquire and use energy?

What is the main energy molecule of cells?

What are oxidation-reduction reactions? How do they work in cells?

What is the source of all energy on earth?

What are the first and second laws of thermodynamics?

What are enzymes in terms of structure and function in cells?

What is activation energy?

What is osmosis, and what are concentration gradients? Define isotonic, hypotonic and hypertonic.


Chapter 6

What is photosynthesis? Organelles?

Know the substrates and products of photosynthesis.

What happens in the light-dependent reactions?

What does chlorophyll do?

Where is oxygen evolved?

What provides the energy necessary to form glucose?


Chapter 35

What are our bodies' three main lines of defense?

What is the inflammatory response? Signs of inflammation?

What is the difference between nonspecific and specific responses?

What are MHC markers and their function?

Cell-mediated response? Antibody-mediated response?

Know the immune system cells and their functions.


Chapter 12

What is the specific function of DNA?

What are the patterns of base pairing in DNA?

What are the N-containing bases in DNA?

Know some of the enzymes involved in DNA replication (in your notes).

How does DNA repair itself?


Chapter 22

Which organisms are in the Kingdom Plantae?

Difference between nonvascular and vascular plants and examples of each?

Difference between vascular seedless and seedbearing plants and examples of each?

What is an ovule, an ovary and a seed and the parts of the seed?

What are the organs of the plant body?

How do leaves and shoots differ from roots? How did they evolve?

Know the plants life cycle in terms of sporophytes, gametophytes, spores and gametes?

What cells of plants are produced by mitosis? What cells of plants are produced by meiosis?


Chapter 8

What is mitosis?

What is the cell cycle and how does it function to produce new cells?

What are the four phases of mitosis?

Define haploid and diploid and know examples of each.

Contrast mitosis and cytokinesis.


Chapter 9

What is the function of meiosis?

What is the advantage of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction?

What is gamete formation?

What is the difference between mitosis and meiosis?

What is crossing over?


Chapter 10

Describe Mendel's work with pea plants and his law of inheritance.

What carries the pollen?

What are alleles and what are genes?

Know the difference among Parental (P generation), F1 and F2 generations.

What is the difference between a genoptype and phenotype?

Know how to use Punnett squares to cross traits and create new allele combinations.

Know how to predict the outcome of monhybrid crosses and dihybrid crosses (ratios).

Understand dominance, incomplete dominance and codominance. What is a recessive trait?

What is a test cross? Know how to do one.

Chapter 19

What is the origin of the earth?

Know the main layers of the earth?

What is the RNA world?

How long ago did the first cells appear on earth?

What are the two prokaryotic lineages?

Know about cyanobacteria and stromatolites.

What was important about the evolution of photosynthesis?

What is the endosymbiotic theory of cell evolution and who is Lynn Margulis?

What is the origin of organelles? Which have two unit membranes?

How many Kingdoms are there, and what are they?


Chapter 15

What are restriction enzymes and what is their function in genetic engineering?

Know how PCR functions to produce more DNA or cDNA.

What are probes? What are gene libraries?

What is gene therapy?


Chapter 23

Know six characteristics of the Animal Kingdom.

When did multicellular animals originate and what was their most likely ancestor?

What types of symmetry exist in animal body plans? Know examples of each type.

Know the difference between a medusa, a polyp and a planula? What is a nematocyst?

Which phyla have a complete digestive system?

What is cephalization?

What is segmentation?

Which phyla of animals are acoelomate? Which are pseudocoelomate? Which are coelomate?

What lines the coelom? What is the advantage of a coelum?

Distinguish between protostomes and deuterostomes.

Know which phyla are protostomes and which are deuterostomes.

Know the feeding habits and feeding mechanisms of sponges, cnidarians, platyhelminthes, nematodes, annelids, arthropods, molluscs, and echinoderms.

Know special or distinguishing characteristics of each phylum.

Chapter 42

Distinguish among the following: community, population, habitat and niche.

Know the types of symbiosis that occur in natural ecosystems.

How do predator -prey interactions function in nature?

How does instability fit into the picture regarding species diversity?

What is succession?


Chapter 43

Define an ecosystem and how the components are related.

Know the flow of energy in an ecosystem.

Understand the flow of nutrients within ecosystems.

What is a food web; How does it compare to a food chain?

What happens eventually to all the energy entering an ecosystem?

What are the major biogeochemical cycles? How do they function?

What is the role of nitrogen-fixing bacteria?


Chapter 44

What are the effects of global air circulation patterns, ocean currents and topographic features?

What is the rainshadow effect?

Define the word biosphere.

What are biomes? How do they differ from each other?

What are the components of soils?

What are the characteristics of a tropical rain forest?

What are the characteristics of deserts?

What are the characteristics of temperate deciduous forests?

What are the characteristics of taiga (boreal forest)?

What are the characteristics of tundra.

Compare elevation to latitude in terms of vegetation and climate.

What are the aquatic provinces and how much of the earth do they cover?


Chapter 40

What are population dynamics?

What factors influence a population's pattern of growth?

What are the three types of distribution patterns? Which is most common?

Know the difference between exponential (J-shaped curve) and logistic growth (S-shaped curve).

How does growth rate value (r) affect the curve?

When is there an increase in growth in population size?

What are density-dependent factors?

What are density-independent factors?

What are limiting factors? How do they affect growth rates?

What is carrying capacity?


Chapter 41

What are the components of behavior?

How does the song system develop in birds?

What is the adaptive value of certain behaviors? Why do starlings use wild carrot in nesting material?

Distinguish among imprinting, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, habituation, and insight learning.

Is behavior subject to evolution via natural selection?

What are communication signals? Provide some examples.

What are communication displays? Provide some examples.

What is the "cost-benefit" analysis of living in social groups?

What is altruism?


Chapter 45

What is the role of human population growth on environmental impacts?

What is the definition of a pollutant?

Name the two types of smog and where they originate.

What is an inversion layer and where and how does it form?

What is the thinning of the ozone layer and why is it a problem?

What is acid rain, where does it originate, and what are its effects?

Why is deforestation a problem?

What is desertification? What is the impact on soils?

Which types of fuels are nonrenewable and which are renewable?