What is Biology Characteristics of Living Things

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What is Biology?Characteristics of Living Things

• Biology Text pp. 5-9

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Biology is the Study of Life

• Biologist study the interactions of life.
• Entomologist
• Histologist
• Ornithologist
• Ichthyologist
• Etc

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How does one define life?

• There are 6 different Characteristics that an
  organism must have to be considered living.

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1. Cells/Organization

• Living things are highly organized they are all
  composed of tiny living units called cells.
• Cell?tissue ? organ ? organ system ? organism
• Some organisms consist of only a single cell,
  others have trillions.
• Multicellular
• Unicellular

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2. Energy Transformation

• Living things take in energy and change it into
  different forms.
• The transformed energy is used to power all of
  lifes processes (growth, etc.)
• Metabolism is the term for all of an organisms
  bio-chemical reactions and energy transformations.

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3. Reproduction

• Individual organisms die, but the species
  continues because of reproduction.
• Reproduction without genetic contribution from
  two parents is called asexual.
• Sexual reproduction produces offspring with
  genetic material from both parents.

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4. Growth (important!)

• Living things grow over their lifetimes.
• Mitosis-cell division
• Single- celled organisms increase their volume
  and multicellular organisms add to the number of
  cells in their body.

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5. Response to the Environment

• Living things react to and interact with factors
  in their surroundings
• Abiotic factors- non-living
• Biotic factors -living
• These reactions can take place almost instantly
  or over a period of hours, days, months, years,
  or even generations.

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5. Response to the Environment

• When presented with the proper stimulus, a living
  organism will respond.
• Can occur at the cellular level (homeostasis)
• A complex set of responses is called behavior.

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6. Adaptation/Evolution

• Over (generally) long periods of time (several to
  thousands generations, depending on the
  organism), environmental pressures may lead to
  permanent genetic changes in groups of organisms.
• This process is called evolution.
• These changes, or adaptations, help the organism
  survive and reproduce in its environment.

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Any Questions?