CHAPTER 1 LIFE: BIOLOGICAL

PRINCIPLES
AND THE SCIENCE OF ZOOLOGY
 
1.1. The Uses of Principles
A. Underlying Principles Central to Understanding Zoology
1. Laws of physics and chemistry underlie some zoology principles.
2. Principles of genetics and evolution guide much zoological study.
3. Principles learned from one animal group can be applied to others.
4. Some science methods specify how to conduct solid research.
B.Zoology, the Study of Animal Life
1. Zoologists studying many dimensions base research upon a
long history of work.

2.Two central principles are evolution and the chromosomal

theory of inheritance.
Observing moray eels Working with tranquilized polar bears

Banding mallard ducks

Observing Daphnia pulex
Fundamental Properties of Life

A.Defining Properties of Life

1. Properties exhibited by life today are different from
those at its origin.
2. Change over time, or evolution, has generated many
unique living properties.
3. Definitions based on complex replicative processes
would exclude non-life, but also early forms from which
cellular life descended.
4. We do not force life into a simple definition, yet we
can readily recognize life from a nonliving world.
B. General Properties of Living Systems
1. Chemical Uniqueness (Figures 1.2, 2.11)
a.Macromolecules in organisms are far more complex than
molecules in nonliving matter.
b.They obey the same physical laws as nonliving molecules
but are more complex.
c.Nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates and lipids are
common molecules in life.
d.Their general structure evolved early; thus the common
amino acid subunits of proteins are found throughout
life.
e.They provide both a unity based on living ancestry and a
potential for diversity.
Figure 01.02 A lyzosome protein

Molecular groups formed

by various combinations of
carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
hydrogen, and sulfur aroms
2. Complexity and Hierarchical Organization
(Figures 1.3, 1.4; Table 1.1)

a.Life has an ascending order of complexity: macromolecules, cells,

organisms, populations and species.
b.Each of these levels has an internal structure: macromolecules form
ribosomes and membranes, etc. and cells form tissues.
c.However, each level has unique abilities and requirements; cells can
replicate but are not independent in an organism.
d.New characteristics that appear at the next level of organization are
emergent properties.
e.Because of the interactions of the components, we must study all levels
directly as well as together.
f.Diversity of emergent properties at higher levels is a result of evolution
(i.e., lower levels without hearing cannot develop language).
Figure 01.03
Volvox globator
Figure 01.04
Ciliated epithelial cells
3. Reproduction (Figure 1.5)

a. Life comes from previous life but had to arise from

nonliving matter at least once.
b. Genes replicate genes, cells divide to produce new cells
and organisms produce new organisms sexually or
asexually.
c. Reproduction is not necessary of individuals, but is
necessary for a lineage to survive.
d. Reproduction is a combination of contradictory processes
of copying traits, but with variation.
e. If heredity were perfect, life would never change; if it were
wildly variable, life would lack stability
 Figure 01.05

DNA

Cell division at telophase

Formation of new species

A king snake hatching in the sea urchhin
4. Possession of a Genetic Program

a. Structures of protein molecules are encoded in nucleic

acids.
b. Genetic information in animals is contained in DNA.
c. Sequences of nucleotide bases (A, C, G and T) code for the
order of amino acids in a protein.
d. The genetic code is correspondence between bases in
DNA and sequence of amino acids.
e. This genetic code was established early in evolution and
has undergone little change.
f. The genetic code in animal mitochondrial DNA is slightly
different from nuclear and bacterial DNA.
g. Changes in mitochondrial DNA (it contains fewer proteins)
are less likely to disrupt cell functions.
 Watson and Crick with a model of the DNA
Double helix

DNA molecules that are similar in base sequence

but differ from each other in four positions; such
differences can encode alternative traits
5. Metabolism (Figure 1.7)
a.Living organisms maintain themselves by acquiring
nutrients from the environment.
b.Breakdown of nutrients provides both energy and
molecular components for cells.
c. Metabolism is the range of essential chemical processes.
d.Metabolism involves constructive (anabolic) and
destructive (catabolic) reactions.
e. Most metabolic pathways occur in specific cell organelles.
f.The study of the performance of complex metabolic
functions is physiology.
 An amoeba surrounding
a food

A chameleon capturing insect

prey with its projectile tongue
6. Development (Figure 1.8)

a. Development describes characteristic changes an

organism undergoes from origin to adult.
b. It involves changes in size and shape, and differentiation
within the organism.
c. Some animals have uniquely different embryonic,
juvenile and adult forms.
d. The transformation from stage to stage is
metamorphosis.
e. Among animals, early stages of related organisms are
more similar.
An adult monarch butterfly emerging Fully formed adult monarch butterfly
from its pupal case
7. Environmental Interaction (Figure 1.9)

a. Ecology is the study of an organism's interaction with the

environment.
b. Organisms respond to stimuli in the environment, a
property called irritability.
c. We cannot separate life and its evolutionary lineage from
its environment.
A lizard regulates its body temperature by choosing different locations
at different times of the day
C. Life Obeys Physical Laws
1.Vitalism is the belief that life requires more than basic laws of physics;
biological research has found no basis for vitalism.
2.First Law of Thermodynamics (the law of conservation of energy)
a. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can be transformed from one
form to another.
b. All aspects of life require energy.
c. In animals, chemical energy in food is converted to chemical energy in
cells and then converted to mechanical energy of muscle contraction.

3. Second Law of Thermodynamics

a. Physical systems tend to proceed toward a state of greater disorder, or
entropy.
b. Energy obtained and stored by plants is released in many ways and
eventually lost as heat.
c. It takes a constant input of usable energy from food to keep an animal
organized.
d. The process of evolution does not violate the second law; complexity is
achieved by constant use and dissipation of energy flowing into the
biosphere from the sun.
e. Physiologists study survival, growth, reproduction, etc. from an energetic
perspective.
1.3. Zoology as a Part of Biology (Figure 1.10)
A. Characteristics of Animals

1. Animals are a branch of the evolutionary tree of life.

2. Animals are part of a large limb of eukaryotes, organisms that
include fungi and plants with nuclei in cells.
3. Animals are unique in nutrition; they eat other organisms and
therefore need to capture food.
4. Animals lack photosynthesis, cell walls found in plants, and also
lack absorptive hyphae of fungi.
5. Species of Euglena are examples of protists that combine
properties of animals and plants.
Figure 01.10
1.4. Principles of Science
A. Nature of Science
1.Science is a way of asking about the natural world to obtain
precise answers.
2.Asking questions about nature is ancient; modern science is about
2000 years old.
3. Science is separate from activities such as art and religion.
4.The trial over creation science provided a definition of science.
a. Science is guided by natural law.
b. Science has to be explanatory by reference to natural law.
c. Science is testable against the observable world.
d. Science conclusions are tentative; they are not necessarily
the final word.
e. Science is falsifiable.
2.Science is neutral regarding religion and does not favor one
religious position over another.
•The reappearance of “creation-science” in the guise of “intelligent-
design-theory” may force further defense of the teaching of science.
B. Scientific Method (Figure 1.11)
1. Criteria for science form a hypothetico-deductive method.
2.Hypotheses are based on prior observations of nature or derived
from theories based on nature.
3. Testable predictions are made based on hypotheses.
4.A hypothesis powerful in explaining a wide variety of related
phenomena becomes a theory.
5.Falsification of a specific hypothesis does not necessarily lead to
rejection of a theory as a whole.
6.The most useful theories explain the largest array of different natural
phenomena.
7.Scientific meaning of “theory” is not the same as common usage of
theory as “mere speculation.”
8.Powerful theories that guide extensive research are called
paradigms.
9.Replacement of paradigms is a process known as a scientific
revolution; the evolutionary paradigm has guided biology research
for over 130 years.
 Figure 01.11

Light and melanic forms of

The peppered moth in a
the peppered moth in a
Soot-covered tree
lichen-convered tree
C. Experimental Versus Evolutionary Sciences
1.Questions can be divided into those that seek to understand proximate
versus ultimate causes.
2.Studies that explore proximate causes are experimental sciences using
experimental methods that:
a. Predict how a system being studied will respond to disturbance or
treatment,
b. Make the disturbance, and then
c. Compare the observed results with predicted ones.
3. Controls are repetitions of an experiment that lack disturbance or treatment.
4.The sub-fields of molecular biology, cell biology, endocrinology,
developmental biology and community ecology rely heavily on experimental
scientific methods.
5. Ultimate causes are addressed by questions involving long-term time spans.
a. Evolutionary sciences address ultimate causes.
b. Evolutionary questions are often explored using a comparative method.
c. Patterns of modern similarities are used to establish hypotheses on
evolutionary origins.
d. Sub-fields include comparative biochemistry, molecular evolution,
comparative cell biology, comparative anatomy, comparative
physiology and phylogenetic systematics.
1.5. Theories of Evolution and Heredity (Figures 1.12-1.15)
A. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
1. Ernst Mayr describes five central theories of “Darwinism.”
a.Perpetual change: changes across generations are a fact
documented in the fossil record.
b.Common descent: branching lineages form a phylogeny that is
confirmed by expanding research on morphological and
molecular similarities.
c.Multiplication of species: splitting and transforming species
produces new species.
d.Gradualism: small incremental changes over long periods of time
cause gradual evolution, but current research is still studying if
this explains all changes.
•Natural selection: based on variability in a population, the
inheritance of that variation, and different survival of those
variants, explains adaptation.
•Darwin lacked a correct theory of heredity and assumed the
current theory of blending inheritance was correct; Mendel’s theory of
particulate inheritance became well known only in the very early 1900s.
3. Darwin’s theory as modified by incorporation of genetics is called “neo-
Darwinism.”
 Figure 01.14

Evolution of the different bill shapes in the Hawaiian honeycreeeprs

 Figure 01.15

Different forms of the vertebrate forelimbs were molded by natural selection

to adapt them to different functions
B. Mendelian Heredity and the
Chromosomal Theory of Inheritance (Figure
1.16)
1.Chromosomal inheritance is the foundation for genetics and
evolution, as laid down by Mendel.
2. Genetic Approach (Figure 1.17)
a. Mendel’s technique involved crossing true-breeding
populations.
b. Production of F1 hybrids and F2 generations showed lack of
blending, and masking of recessive traits by dominant traits.
c. Traits assorted independently unless on the same
chromosome.
d. Expanded research, especially with fruit flies, clarified genetic
mechanisms.
3. Contributions of Cell Biology (Figures 1.18,1.19)
a. Improvements in microscopes allowed observation of sperm
and location of germ cell line.
b. Discovery of chromosome pairs in body cells and single sets
in germ cells clarified mode of heredity.
 Figure 01.16

Gregor Johann Mendel

Figure 01.17
 Figure 01.18

Sperms from different

animals
 19

Separation of paired chromosomes

before nuclear division