Entries from July 2009
Darwin gives many examples of interdependence in nature in his book “The Origin of species.” In a certain case he observed many acres of scotch fir trees with no other considerable vegetation surrounding. Cattle depend on grazing these trees to keep them alive, so they’re eating habits affect the the population of the trees. At the same time a certain breed of fly in Paraguay where the cattle live depend on the cattle to survive.
Mufasa must have been talking about Darwin when he said, It’s the circle of life.
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1) Adaption of an animal: Bee’s have stingers that may have started out as a mutation and was inherited by offspring which multiplied and turned into an advantage for the species.
5) Amniotic egg: Is an egg that can grow a baby inside such as the chicken egg shown below.
6) Amylase: is an enzyme that breaks down starch into sugar; it is present in saliva which starts the chemical process used in digestion.
7) Angiosperm: is a plant containing its seeds in its ovary like grass.
8 ) Animal with segmented body: an animal with multiple segments making up it’s body.
9) Annelid: is a phylum made up of segmented worms.
10) Anther & Filament of Stamen: the anther is the male organ of the flower and the orange shown in the picture below; it lets out all the pollen when it opens, and the filament is the stalk/ “stem” like figure connecting it to the center of the flower.
11) Arthropod: has a segmented body, an exoskeleton, and appendages/ “legs”. One example of an arthropod is a spider.
13) Autotroph: Uses energy from light to produce organic compounds (i.e. flowers).
50) Fleshy Fruit: refers to fruit with fleshy features; wet and juicy instead of dry with little or no juice.
Posted by: Aundrea
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I chose to read the Origin of Species, this was Darwin’s original publication after his voyage on the beagle. The whole book was the basis for theme two, evolution.
Tags: Theme: Evolution
The author, Jared Diamond, presents a question in the prologue. Diamond is walking with a local politician, Yali, on a beach in New Guinea where Diamond studied bird evolution. Yali asked, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had so little cargo of our own?” The book, Guns, Germs, and Steel is Diamond’s attempt to answer this question. I am expecting an interesting mashup of history and science to emerge.
In Diamond’s anticipation of objections around race and domination, he expected only to understand what happened, not to justify. He’s an evolutionary biologist, not a psychologist or historian, and wondered why Caucasian cultures (Diamond calls them white) built industrialized societies while nearby non-whites did not. It wasn’t intelligence, he reasoned, as his work with New Guineans showed him that they were at least equally intelligent. His initial reasoning is that epidemics and murder did not wipe out portions of the population who then lived to pass on their genes. In New Guinea, only those smart enough to escape disease lived long enough to reproduce, while in “white” populations, one didn’t need to be smart to live through epidemics. (Ok, I’ve simplified the evidence here,) Why, then didn’t the more intelligent New Guineans become a world power? The connecting theme here seems to be evolution. The themes I expect to emerge are Diversity of Organisms, Ecology, and Heredity. I’m reading on……..
Tags: Diversity of Organisms · Reading · Theme: Evolution · Topic: Heredity
Last semester, this space was used by Marine Biology students to share some of the things we learned about the marine environment and marine life. Since we won’t be offering a marine biology class this year, this blog will be a place for AP Bio students to discuss summer reading and to keep a photo blog of concepts. Below you will find links to a few helpful documents. So welcome, AP Bio class of 2009-2010! Post away!
Themes in AP Bio
Topics in AP Bio
Blog/Wiki user agreement
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