Ecology, Evolution,

and Biodiversity

Ivan John M. Clement

PSHS ’07; Lantaka Youth Club
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Outline

 The Nature of Life

 Ecology
 The Cell
 Evolution
 Origin of Life
 Taxonomy and Systematics
 The Diversity of Life
 WARNING!!!
The following slides will
be bombarded by facts!!!

Please fasten your

seatbelts!!!
 The Nature of Life

This is a fact!
Biology

 Biology
 the study of life! (kailangan pa
bang i-memorize ‘yan..?!?)

 There are many areas of study under

Biology… cud ‘ya name some..?
(e.g. anatomy, ethology..)
  Bio is just finding relationships and
patterns among living things.
 From this, we can deduce how different
organisms are related; and also, how
they work.

Q: How do you prove this..?

A: Use the Theory of Evolution!!!
 So what if Bio is the study of
life..?!?
 What does the media present us..?

Kristine Hermosa and MaxiPeel:

Ka-partner mo for flawless skin!!!
 So what does Bio have to say about
Kristine Hermosa and MaxiPeel..:
 Kristine Hermosa is a human!
 MaxiPeel is not a human! (duh..)

 MaxiPeel, even though it can give you

flawless skin, is carcinogenic!

 Bio teaches us how to sift through the

biases that the media-dominated world
presents us.
 Characteristics of Life

 Ano ba ang unique sa mga living things..?

 They are classified under a biological organization
(we’ll deal with this in taxonomy)
 Cell  the basic unit of life!
 DNA  heredity’s main substance!
 “Form follows function”  structures and
functions are correlated
 Open-system  they interact with the
environment!
 Natural balance  achieved by
homeostasis (to be tackled later)
  There is unity and diversity  as dual
forces of life on earth

 Evolution..!
 What makes a “living thing” a living
thing..?
 Response to a certain stimulus  irritability
 Reproduction (asexual and sexual)
 Metabolism (anabolism and catabolism)
 Development (functional change)

 Growth (morphological change)

 Evolutionary adaptation

 Homeostasis
  Order
 Life
is organized under a certain rule.
 They give a sense of orderliness in this world.

 They are islands of low entropy.

“Yes… May I take your order, sir..?”

“One McDo Rice Burger, please…”

It’s Bio in Action!

 Levels of Organization

 All of life is organized into different strata, or

levels
 Increase in strata entails a decrease in entropy
 “There is order in disorder”
 unity and diversity in action!
 Just think of it as sets…
 Ecology

Maikli lang ‘to…

 A Review…

 Do you remember the memories of not so long

ago..?
 Ecosystems
 Biotic and abiotic factors
 Producers, consumers, and decomposers
 Food chains and food webs
 Ecological pyramids

 Symbiosis, predator-prey, and competition

 Nutrient Cycles
 Population Dynamics

 def. Population n. a group of individuals of the

same species living in the same geographic
area.
 All populations have a “life cycle”
 Growth
 Stability
 Decline
 intrinsic rate of increase = birth rate –
death rate
 But, what really happens in the real
world..?
 There are fluctuations in the growth
curve!
 What causes these fluctuation..?
 Biotic potential  the largest size a
population may attain within a certain time
frame
 Environmental resistance or limiting factors
 Carrying capacity

 The last two causes define the “life

cycle” of a population
  The effect of limiting factors are often
directly related to the population density!

uniform random clumped

 But sometimes, they don’t!

 Density-dependent factors
 Most biotic factors are density-dependent
factors
 Disease

 Availability of food
 Predation

 Competition

 Symbiosis

 These factors keep the population density

stable and near the carrying capacity of the
environment
 An example of predation
 An example of competition
 Niche overlap!
 Density-independent factors
 Generally, these are abiotic factors
 Temperature

 Rainfall

 Humidity

 Slow,gradual changes (such as erosion)

 Catastrophic events (volcanic eruptions)

 Sometimes, these factors wipe out the

population!
The Cell

Weh… “Cell” lang

yan eh.. lolz!
 The Cell Theory

 Cell Theory… mas malakas si Cell kaysa kay

Gokou..?!? (weh… korni…)
 (okey.. serious mode..)
Cell Theory
 1. Cells are the basic unit of structure and function
in living things
 2. Living cells are produced from other living cells
 3. The activity of an entire organism depends on the
total activity of its independent cells
Cell Structure and Function
 Evolution

Charmander, evolve!

Yeah!
 An Introduction
 def. Evolution (bio.) n. descent with modification;
descent of modern organisms from ancient ones
 This means that:
 All organisms share a common ancestor!
 Structures and the genetic material of organisms
change gradually through time!
 Patterns of relationships between organisms are
all intertwined
 the Theory of Evolution unifies them all!
The Illustration
Evidences of Evolution
 The Fossil Record
 Listahan ng mga fossils sa isang record
book..?!?
 Hindeh..!
 def. fossil record n. a evolutionary
transition from one form to another,
recorded in the earth’s crust by
fossilization.
 What’s the problem with the fossil
record..?
 Some fossil record do not show any
transition from ancestor to descendants
 some sort of a “quick” jump happens
 There are several hypotheses to explain
this “quick” jump in the fossil record:
 Phyleticgradualism  slow and steady
divergence of lineages
 Punctuated equilibrium  a large amount
of change in a short time tied to a speciation
event
 Macromutation  a big mutation produces a
sudden evolutionary change skipping over
transitional forms
 Morphological and Anatomical
Evidences
 Homologous structures  Structure and
arrangement of bones and muscles are
similar, but functions are different

Divergent Evolution
in action!
  Analogous structures  Similar in
function, but not in origin

Convergent Evolution
in action!

But sometimes,
analogous structures can
be considered as
homologous!
  Vestigial structures  structures that are
reduced in size and appears to have no
use

Human Rabbit
 Embryological Evidences
 Biochemical Evidences
 Evolution… To the “core”

 Early theories of evolution

 “All living things are related and they have to
change over time.”
 Anaxiamander (611-547 B.C.)
 Lucretius (99-55 B.C.)
 “Scala Naturae” or “Ladder of Life”
“Inanimate matter advance to plants, then
plants, and finally men. There are also
beings higher than men.”
 Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

 “All species could change, and this

change is brought about the influences of
the environment, migration, geographic
isolation, overcrowding, and struggle for
existence.”
 Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de
Buffon (1707-1788)
 “There is a possibility of common descent,
based on changes undergone by animals
during development, artificial selection by
humans, and the presence of vestigial
organs.”
 Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802)

 Principle of Biological Succession and

Stratigraphy
“Each period in Earth’s history has its own
unique assemblages of fossils.”
 William Smith (1769-1839)
 Lamarckian Theory of Evolution
 Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829)
 based on three principles:
 Desire to change
 Use and Disuse
 Passing of Acquired Physical Traits
 Darwinian Theory of Evolution
 Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882)
 “On The Origin of Species by Means
of Natural Selection”
 The Four Main Hypotheses
 1. The world is not static but is changing.
 2. Living things change through time.

 3. Organisms with many common

characteristic descended from a common
ancestor.
 4. Evolutionary change is a result of natural
selection.

 The first three hypotheses were not new!

 Natural selection = “survival of the fittest!”
 The major driving force of evolution is
natural selection!
 How does natural selection happen..?
 Step 1: Overproduction
 Step 2: The variety!
 Step 3: Struggle for existence
 Step4: Natural
Selection and the
Origin of New
Species
 Evolutionary Processes
 Adaptive Shift

Biston betularia
 Migration

These are all members of

Canis familiaris!
 Isolation

Sciurus aberti kaibabensis

Sciurus aberti aberti

 Gene Mutation
A change in DNA structure!
 Mutations are “random”  they do not “try” to
supply what organisms “need!”
 Not all mutations matter in evolution…

 The following can happen after a mutation:

 No change in phenotype
 Small change occurs in phenotype
 BIG change occurs in phenotype
 Why does it happen..?
 DNA fails to copy accurately
 External influences
The Origin
of
Life
 Spontaneous Generation vs.
Biogenesis

 def. Spontaneous Generation or abiogenesis n.

the development of living things from inanimate
ones
 def. Biogenesis n. the development of living
things from living things
 Disproving abiogenesis…
 Redi’s Experiment
  Spallanzani’s Experiment

Set-up 1: Set-up 2: Set-up 3: boiled Set-up 4: boiled

left open sealed then left open then sealed
 Pasteur’s
Experiment
 Autotroph vs. Heterotroph
Hypothesis
 Autotroph Hypothesis
 autotroph were the first life forms
 baket..?!?
 Heterotroph Hypothesis
 heterotroph were the first life forms
 baket..?!?
 Oparin’s
Hypothesis and
Miller’s
Experiment
 Taxonomy and
Systematics

“Taxo”-nomy daw..
Hindeh “Taxi”-nomy!
nyehehe! lolz
 An Introduction

 Systematics  you try to see the evolutionary

relationships among organisms by classifying
them
 Taxonomy  you just identify, classify, then give
a name!
 Why classify..?!?

 ..to make biologists organized! (seriously..!)

 ..to make scientists understand each other when
they talk about organisms..
 ..to decrease the entropy in this world… Haay!
 ..to make a database that can help in making
medicines, biological weapons, biosensors, and
other applications..
 Carl von Linne and
Nomenclature
 Carl von Linne == Carolus Linnaeus!
 He developed the binomial system of
nomenclature..
 e.g. dog = (x – 2)(x + 3) [nyeh.. Joke time..!]
 Dog = Canis familiaris
 Cockroach = Periplaneta americana
 Gumamela = Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
 Yakult = Lactobacillus casei
 The Classification System
Note: For our purposes, we’ll use the
5-Kingdom Classification Scheme

Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
*Kim Possible came over for good soup!
 Bases for Classifying
Organisms
 Homologous Structures (remember..?!?)
 Biochemical Similarities (maalaala mo kaya..?!?)
 Genetic Similarities
 DNA: passed from one generation to the
next
 the greater the similarity in DNA structure,
the more closely related are the organisms
The
5-Kingdom
Classification
Scheme
The Diversity of Life

..this is just the beginning..