Chapter 1

Exploring Life

PowerPoint Lectures for

Biology, Seventh Edition
Neil Campbell and Jane Reece

Lectures by Chris Romero

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 • Overview: Biology’s Most Exciting Era

• Biology
– Is the scientific study of life

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 • The phenomenon we call life
– Defies a simple, one-sentence definition

Figure 1.1
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 • We recognize life
– By what living things do

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 • Some properties of life

(b) Evolutionary
adaptation
(a) Order
(c) Response to the
environment

(e) Energy
processing
(d) Regulation

(f) Growth and (g) Reproduction

development
Figure 1.2
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 • Concept 1.1: Biologists explore life from the
microscopic to the global scale
• The study of life
– Extends from the microscope scale of
molecules and cells to the global scale of the
entire living planet

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 A Hierarchy of Biological Organization
• The hierarchy of life
– Extends through many levels of biological
organization

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 • From the biosphere to organisms
1 The biosphere

Figure 1.3

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 • From cells to molecules
9 Organelles
1 µm
Cell

8 Cells

Atoms

10 µm 10 Molecules

7 Tissues

50 µm

6 Organs and organ systems

Figure 1.3
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 A Closer Look at Ecosystems
• Each organism
– Interacts with its environment

• Both organism and environment

– Are affected by the interactions between them

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 Ecosystem Dynamics
• The dynamics of any ecosystem include two
major processes
– Cycling of nutrients, in which materials
acquired by plants eventually return to the soil
– The flow of energy from sunlight to producers
to consumers

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 Energy Conversion
• Activities of life
– Require organisms to perform work, which
depends on an energy source

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 • The exchange of energy between an organism
and its surroundings
– Often involves the transformation of one form
of energy to another

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 • Energy flows through an ecosystem
– Usually entering as sunlight and exiting as
heat Sunlight

Ecosystem

Producers
(plants and other
photosynthetic
organisms)
Heat
Chemical
energy

Consumers
(including animals)

Figure 1.4 Heat

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 A Closer Look at Cells
• The cell
– Is the lowest level of organization that can
perform all activities required for life

Figure 1.5 25 µm
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 The Cell’s Heritable Information
• Cells contain chromosomes made partly of
DNA, the substance of genes
– Which program the cells’ production of proteins
and transmit information from parents to
offspring
Sperm cell

Nuclei
containing
DNA

Fertilized egg Embyro’s cells

with DNA from with copies of
both parents inherited DNA Offspring with traits
Egg cell
inherited from
Figure 1.6 both parents

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 • The molecular structure of DNA
– Accounts for it information-rich nature
Nucleus

DNA

Cell
A
C
Nucleotide T
A
T
A
C
C
G
T
A
G
T
A
(a) DNA double helix. This model shows
(b) Single strand of DNA. These geometric shapes and
letters are simple symbols for the nucleotides in a
each atom in a segment of DNA.Made
small section of one chain of a DNA molecule.
Genetic information is encoded in specific sequences
up of two long chains of building
blocks called nucleotides, a DNA
Figure 1.7 of the four types of nucleotides (their names are
molecule takes the three-dimensional
abbreviated here as A, T, C, and G).
form of a double helix.
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 Two Main Forms of Cells
• All cells share certain characteristics
– They are all enclosed by a membrane

– They all use DNA as genetic information

• There are two main forms of cells

– Eukaryotic

– Prokaryotic

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 • Eukaryotic cells
– Are subdivided by internal membranes into
various membrane-enclosed organelles

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 • Prokaryotic cells
– Lack the kinds of membrane-enclosed
organelles found in eukaryotic cells
EUKARYOTIC CELL PROKARYOTIC CELL
DNA
(no nucleus)
Membrane
Membrane
Cytoplasm

Organelles
Figure 1.8 Nucleus (contains DNA) 1 µm

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 The Three Domains of Life
• At the highest level, life is classified into three
domains
– Bacteria

– Archaea

– Eukarya

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 • Domain Bacteria and domain Archaea
– Consist of prokaryotes

• Domain Eukarya, the eukaryotes

– Includes the various protist kingdoms and the
kingdoms Plantae, Fungi, and Animalia

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 • Life’s three domains

Bacteria are the most diverse 4 µm Protists (multiple kingdoms) Kingdom Plantae consists of
100 µm
and widespread prokaryotes are unicellular eukaryotes and multicellula eukaryotes that carry
and are now divided among multiple their relatively simple multicellular out photosynthesis, the conversion
kingdoms. Each of the rod-shaped relatives.Pictured here is an assortment of of light energy to food.
structures in this photo is a bacterial cell. protists inhabiting pond water. Scientists are
currently debating how to split the protists
into several kingdoms that better represent
DOMAIN ARCHAEA evolution and diversity.

Many of the prokaryotes known Kindom Fungi is defined in part by the Kindom Animalia consists of
0.5 µm
as archaea live in Earth‘s nutritional mode of its members, such multicellular eukaryotes that
extreme environments, such as salty lakes as this mushroom, which absorb ingest other organisms.
and boiling hot springs. Domain Archaea nutrientsafter decomposing organic
includes multiple kingdoms. The photo material.
Figure 1.15 shows a colony composed of many cells.

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 Unity in the Diversity of Life
• As diverse as life is
– There is also evidence of remarkable unity
15 µm

1.0 µm
Cilia of Paramecium.
The cilia of Paramecium
propel the cell through
pond water.

5 µm
Cross section of cilium, as viewed
with an electron microscope

Cilia of windpipe cells. The cells that line the human windpipe
are equipped with cilia that help keep the lungs clean by moving
Figure 1.16 a film of debris-trapping mucus upward.

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 • Concept 1.4: Evolution accounts for life’s unity and
diversity
• The history of life
– Is a saga of a changing Earth billions of years old

Figure 1.17
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 • The evolutionary view of life
– Came into sharp focus in 1859 when Charles
Darwin published On the Origin of Species by
Natural Selection

Figure 1.18
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 • The Origin of Species articulated two main
points
– Descent with modification

– Natural selection

Figure 1.19
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 Natural Selection
• Darwin proposed natural selection
– As the mechanism for evolutionary adaptation
of populations to their environments
Population
of organisms

Overproduction
Hereditary
and struggle for
variations
existence

Differences in
reproductive success

Evolution of adaptations
Figure 1.20 in the population
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 • The products of natural selection
– Are often exquisite adaptations of organisms to
the special circumstances of their way of life
and their environment

Figure 1.22

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 The Tree of Life
• Many related organisms
– Have very similar anatomical features, adapted
for their specific ways of life

• Such examples of kinship

– Connect life’s “unity in diversity” to Darwin’s
concept of “descent with modification”

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 • Darwin proposed that natural selection
– Could enable an ancestral species to “split” into two or
more descendant species, resulting in a “tree of life”
Large
Small Large
ground finch
ground
Large cactus tree finch
ground finch finch
Geospiza Camarhynchus Green Gray
Geospiza
magnirostris psitacula warbler warbler
Sharp-beaked fuliginosa Woodpecker Medium
Geospiza Medium tree finch finch finch
ground finch ground finch
conirostris
GeospizaCactus finch Certhidea Certhidea
Cactospiza Camarhynchus
difficilis ground finch pauper olivacea fusca
pallida
Mangrove
Geospiza Small tree finch
fortis finch
Geospiza Camarhynchus
scandens Cactospiza
parvulus
heliobates Vegetarian
Seed eater Cactus flower Seed eater
eater finch

Platyspiza
crassirostris
Insect eaters Bud eater
Ground finches Tree finches Warbler finches

Common ancestor from

Figure 1.23 South American mainland

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 • Each species is on twig of a branching tree of
life
– Extending back in time through ancestral
species more and more remote

• All of life
– Is connected through its long evolutionary
history

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 • Concept 1.5: Biologists use various forms of
inquiry to explore life
• At the heart of science is inquiry
– A search for information and explanation, often
focusing on specific questions

• Biology blends two main processes of scientific

inquiry
– Discovery science

– Hypothesis-based science
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 Discovery Science
• Discovery science
– Describes natural structures and processes as
accurately as possible through careful
observation and analysis of data

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 The Role of Hypotheses in Inquiry
• In science, a hypothesis
– Is a tentative answer to a well-framed
question, an explanation on trial
– Makes predictions that can be tested

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 A Closer Look at Hypotheses in Scientific Inquiry
• A scientific hypothesis must have two important
qualities
– It must be testable

– It must be falsifiable

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 Limitations of Science
• Science cannot address supernatural
phenomena
– Because hypotheses must be testable and
falsifiable and experimental results must be
repeatable

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 Theories in Science
• A scientific theory
– Is broad in scope

– Generates new hypotheses

– Is supported by a large body of evidence

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 Model Building in Science
• Models of ideas, structures, and processes
– Help us understand scientific phenomena and
make predictions From From
body lungs

Right Right
artium artium

Right Right
ventricle ventricle

Figure 1.30 To lungs To body

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 The Culture of Science
• Science is a social activity
– Characterized by both cooperation and
competition

Figure 1.31
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 Science, Technology, and Society
• Technology
– Applies scientific knowledge for some specific
purpose

Figure 1.32

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 • Concept 1.6: A set of themes connects the
concepts of biology
• Underlying themes
– Provide a framework for understanding biology

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 • Eleven themes that unify biology

Table 1.1
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