BIOL 101

STUDY GUIDE: THE DIVERSITY AND RELATIONSHIPS OF LIFE

14.1 The Challenge of Classifying Life’s Diversity

A problem that confounds attempts to organize the entire living world for study is that it is
unknown how many separate species of life forms exist on this planet.

A problem that confounds attempts to organize the entire living world for study is that there are
too many organisms with too much overlapping complexity to support a simple means of
classification.

A problem that confounds attempts to organize the entire living world for study is the need of
evolutionists to bring the entire diversity of living things ultimately into their origin.

14.2 Classification: Engaging the Challenge

Seeking to scientifically name each variety of life form found and relate it to other similar
species is a discipline known as taxonomy.

The term systematics refers to attempts to derive a biologically meaningful filing system for
organizing genera and species.

What criteria are used for collecting species of organisms into a genus?

Using Latin root words, the new species is then named for its primary distinguishing features
using two words (names) in accordance with standard rules: Its genus name is listed first and
capitalized. The species name is listed second and is in lowercase letters.

Compared to a species, a genus is more inclusive, with broader structural and functional
variations.

Be able to properly write the scientific name for human beings according to the rules for naming
species.

Homo sapiens

The convention used for representing scientific names for newly discovered species is that Latin
root words are used in order to name the organism’s primary distinguishing features.

List these 4 taxonomic levels in their correct order, from least inclusive to most inclusive:
species, genus, family, order

Species, Genus, Family, Order

List these 5 taxonomic levels in their correct order, from least inclusive to most inclusive:
family, order, class, phylum, kingdom

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Family, Order, Class, Phylum, Kingdom

14.3 Characteristics Used in Classification

List and describe 7 basic characteristics used to classify living things.

1. Photosynthesis?: Can the cell utilize solar energy to make food, or must it get food from
some other organism?
2. Multicellularity?: Is it, like an algal strand, merely a colonial association of relatively
independent cells attached to each other, or are the cells (as in a moss plant) differentiated
into separate types to form tissues?
3. Nucleus?: Does it possess a visible, membrane-bound, or true nucleus?
4. Flagellae?: Does it have a whip-like extension on the cell, which makes it motile?
5. Mitochondria?: Does it contain the powerhouses of the cell, generating large quantities of
ATP from carbohydrate sources?
6. Amoeboid Movement?: A forward projecting portion of the cell boundary expands
suddenly. The cytoplasm in the vicinity becomes fluid and the cell flows into the
extension. This allows them to project across surfaces by extending portions of their
cytoplasm in a new direction.
7. Gene Sequences?: Molecular sequence comparison that has become the principle
determinant in assigning organisms to broad groups.
14.4 Using Characteristics: Priorities and Presuppositions

The state of flux in modern systematic groupings could best be described as/seen in a variety of
conflicting kingdom or domain structures.

List 2 currently accepted classification schemes shared in your text. Each scheme attempts to
take in all known organisms.

1. Groups (systematic)
2. Clades (evolutionary naturalists)
In the mind of evolutionary theorists, separate clades (large groups) derived from a single
common ancestor at the point where clade lineages meet.

In the minds of design theorists, separate clades (large groups) derived from separate concepts in
the Mind of a Designer.

14.5 Using Characteristics to Derive Groups

List the names of 10 groups of living organisms and a representative species of organism
belonging to each group.

1. The Bacteria – Escherichia coli

2. The Archaea – Pyrodictium occultum

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3. The Excavata – Trichomonas vaginalis

4. The Rhizaria – Globigerina bulloides
5. The Discicristates – Euglena gracilis
6. The Alveolata – Paramecium aurelium
7. The Stramenopiles – Ellerbeckia arenaria
8. The Amoebozoa – Amoeba proteus
9. The Plants – Pisum sativum
10. The Opisthokonta – Zonotrichia leucophrys
List 10 small sets of defining characteristics that can be used to place organisms within each of
the 10 groups.

1. Bacteria – a large group of prokaryotic, mostly unicellular organisms; those with cell
walls contain the polymer peptidoglycan in those walls.
2. Archaea – a large group of prokaryotic, mostly unicellular organisms that tend to inhabit
extremes of environment such as high-temperature, high-pressure, or high-salt
environments.
3. Excavata – a large group of unicellular eukaryotic organisms with mitochondria that are
highly modified or absent; usually possessing two, four, or more flagellae.
4. Rhizaria – a large group of unicellular eukaryotes that includes ameboid cells as well as
foraminerans and radiolarians; most have mitochondria with tubular cristae.
5. Discicristates – a large group of unicellular eukaryotes whose mitochondrial cristae are
disc-like in shape; includes many euglenoid forms such as genus Euglena.
6. Alveolata – a large group of unicellular eukaryotic forms that includes those possessing
cilia and the sporozoan cells that cause malaria; possess mitochondria with tubular
cristae.
7. Stramenopiles – a large group of golden and brown algae and diatoms; all are eukaryotic;
also called heterokonts as a motile stage of their life cycle contains two different shaped
flagellae.
8. Amoebozoa – a single-celled, eukaryotic forms that move by internal flow of cytoplasm
into blunt, lobe-like pseudopodial extensions of the cell membrane.
9. Plants – multi-cellular forms that are eukaryotic in structure and diverse in habitat; all
autotrophic organisms whose photosynthesis occurs in chloroplasts that are surrounded
by a double membrane.
10. Opisthokonta – a large group of eukaryotic multicellular life-forms that includes the fungi
and animal kingdoms. Flagellated cells in this group have a single, posteriorly oriented
flagellum.
15. Ecology: Interactivity by Design

Your textbook describes two sequential phases of interaction between organisms and their
environments that have existed since God’s creative work began.

15.1 Thinking like an Ecologist: Exploring a Lake

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Name the 3 zones of life found in a lake.

1. Littoral Zone
2. Limnetic Zone
3. Profundal Zone
The phytoplankton of a lake would be found in highest numbers in the limnetic zone.

During the springtime, a light wind blowing across a lake will foster the process of lake overturn.
This timely event will bring together accumulated nutrients with living phytoplankton.

Explain how the unusual relative densities of water and ice are critical to the viability of life in a
deep lake.

Since water is more dense at 4˚C than at 0˚C, ice forms at the surface of a deep lake instead of
freezing from the bottom up, which would be a death sentence to everything in the limnetic zone
each winter. This layer of ice also creates an insulation layer to prevent the cold temperatures
from freezing the water farther down in the lake.

15.2 Hierarchical Organization in Ecology

List the names of several different levels of organization at which ecology is studied.

Organismal ecology, Population ecology, Community ecology, Ecosystem level

Studying competition between the Peaks of Otter salamander and the Eastern redback
salamander would be an example of studying ecology at the community level.

At which of the levels of organization listed above can the Peaks of Otter salamander be studied?

Organismal, Populational, Community, and Ecosystem levels

15.3 Organismal Ecology

The functional role of a species within its habitat is referred to as its niche.

An area providing cool, moist conditions with rocks and decaying logs at an appropriate
elevation and rainfall level constitutes a good habitat for the Peaks of Otter salamander.

15.5 Community Ecology

A relationship between individuals of two species in which members of one species are benefited
and members of the other species are unaffected is termed commensalism.

The relationship between the wildebeest and Thompson’s gazelle represents a good example of
Commensalism.

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Interspecific Competition

Define the phrase “interspecific competition” in terms of how the species within its relationship
are affected.

Where 2 interspecies creatures compete for survival in an area and one wins over the other.

Explain why young Balanus barnacles cannot compete with Chthamalus barnacles in higher
intertidal regions.

The Chthamalus barnacles are found primarily in the upper part of the intertidal region which
means the barnacles would be exposed to air. However, the Balanus barnacles are vulnerable to
desiccation in the upper region.

How do species of warblers (birds) living in the same general region minimize their interspecific
competition?

The different species forage in different parts of the trees.

One Species Benefits and the Other is Adversely Affected

Baleen whales use bubble netting to prey on herring fish.

Thorns, toxic products of metabolism, fuzzy structures, and predator satiation are all defense
tactics that what large group of organisms use to keep from being preyed upon?

Plants

When a species of fly has a bold coloration very similar to that of an unpalatable (stinging)
yellow jacket, the fly’s “strategy” is termed Mullerian mimicry.

Both Species Benefit

The best term to describe the species-species interaction between Pseudomyrmex ants and the
bullhorn acacia plant would be mutualism.

In the human and greater honeyguide mutualism, how is the honeyguide bird benefited?

After the people gathered the honey they desired, the bird would have an easier time eating
pieces of the remaining honeycomb from which it extracted larvae and wax to supplement its
normal diet of insects.

5.7 A Final Word about Our Interaction with God’s Household

Summarize a rationale for why a fallen, decaying created order still needs to be stewarded
carefully by its human inhabitants.

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Our own bodies are in decay and we need to take care of them. We will not gain new bodies
immediately, even after salvation, so we need to make sure that we are good stewards; we should
care for the environment like we care for our own bodies, to bring glory to God.

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