Sinopsis
Life on Earth takes on a staggering variety of forms, often functioning and behaving in ways strange to humans. For example, gastric-brooding frogs swallow their embryos and give birth to them later by throwing them up! Some species of puffballs, a type of fungus, are capable of producing trillions of spores when they reproduce. Fetal sand sharks kill and eat their siblings while still inside their mother. Some Ophrys orchids look so much like female bees that male bees try to mate with them. Octopuses and squid have remarkable
problem-solving abilities despite a small brain. Some bacteria live their entire life in 15 minutes, while bristlecone pine trees outlive ten generations of humans. Simply put, from the deepest oceanic trenches to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, life is plentiful and diverse.
Figure 1.1 illustrates the major groups of living things, also called organisms. From left to right, bacteria are widely distributed, tiny, microscopic organisms with a very simple structure. A Paramecium is an example of a microscopic protist. Protists are larger in size and more complex than bacteria. The other organisms in Figure 1.1 are easily seen with the naked eye. They can be distinguished by how they get their food. A morel is a fungus that digests its food externally. A sunflower is a photosynthetic plant that makes its own food, and a snow goose is an animal that ingests its food.
Because life is so diverse, it seems reasonable that it cannot be defined in a straightforward manner. Instead, life is best defined by several basic characteristics shared by all organisms. Like nonliving things, organisms are composed of chemical elements. Also, organisms obey the same laws of chemistry and physics that govern everything within the universe. The characteristics of life, however, will provide great insight into the unique nature of organisms and will help us distinguish living things from nonliving things.
Content
- The Cell
- Genetic Basis of Life
- Evolution
- Microbiology and Evolution
- Plant Evolution and Biology
- Animal Evolution and Diversity
- Comparative Animal Biology
- Behavior and Ecology
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